Somali pirates on Wednesday attacked and seized the Russian tanker Moskovsky Universitet (Moscow University) in the Gulf of Aden, a Navy source said.
He earlier said the incident had occurred around 8.00 a.m. Moscow time [04:00 GMT], when the tanker was on en route from the Red Sea to China. The pirates attacked the Russian vessel 350 miles east of the Gulf of Aden. There are 23 people on board, all of them Russian citizens.
He added that a Russian warship, the large anti-submarine ship Marshal Shaposhnikov, was on its way to help the tanker but would be unable to reach it until Wednesday night, most likely "between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Thursday."
Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has briefed President Dmitry Medvedev on the seizure of the tanker.
A source in the coalition force staff in the region said any action against the pirates would be taken after a thorough assessment of the situation.
Novoship, the company that owns the Russian tanker, has lost contact with the vessel, the company's press service said.
A company spokesperson said she could neither confirm nor deny that the tanker had been seized.
The captain of the tanker, which is carrying 86,000 tons of crude oil, managed to get in touch with the Russian warship by phone and call for help.
The captain said two small boats with armed men on board had made an attempt to approach the tanker and fired automatic weapons.
The Liberian-flagged tanker exercised a series of maneuvers to avoid seizure but subsequently succumbed.
The Navy source did not say exactly where the Pacific Fleet's Udaloy-class guided-missile destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov was at the moment.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has opened a criminal case on charges of piracy into the seizure of the Russian vessel.
The Marshal Shaposhnikov, a large anti-submarine ship, has two helicopters and an infantry unit on board.
A Russian Pacific Fleet task force comprising the Marshal Shaposhnikov, the MB-37 salvage tug and the Pechenga tanker arrived in the Gulf of Aden on March 29 to join the anti-piracy mission there.
The task force is the fourth group of warships from the Russian Pacific Fleet engaged in the anti-piracy mission off Somalia, with the previous three task forces led by the Admiral Vinogradov, Admiral Panteleyev and the Admiral Tributs destroyers. The Northern and Baltic fleets have also sent task forces to the region.
Somali pirates carried out a record number of attacks and hijackings in 2009. According to the Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau, a total of 217 vessels were attacked last year, resulting in 47 hijackings.
MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti)
