Around noon on April 27, near the entrance to the Black Sea Bosporus, the Russian reconnaissance ship Liman and the Togo-flagged Yozarsif-H cattle carrier collided. As a result, "Liman" received a hole and sank. 78 crew members were rescued, no one was hurt.
What happened?
According to various sources, at 11:44 or 11:53 Moscow time, two ships collided near the entrance to the Black Sea Bosporus Strait. One of them was the Liman medium reconnaissance ship of the Black Sea Fleet.
At 12:00 Moscow time, the ships of the Black Sea Fleet received an order to enter the collision area. An-26 aircraft with a rescue team on board was also sent there. However, as a result of the collision, the Liman received a hole below the waterline in the starboard side and sank at about 14:48 Moscow time. Judging by the coordinates transmitted by the media, this happened about 37 kilometers northwest of the Rumeli-Feneri lighthouse, which stands at the entrance to the Bosphorus.
A little earlier, the nearby Russian dry cargo ship Ulus Star, which was heading from Astrakhan to Italian Ravenna, was promptly redirected to this area. Two boats of the Turkish coast guard, as well as the culprit of the collision, which will be discussed below, took on board the entire crew of the Liman - 78 people. Initial reports of 15 missing were not confirmed. People will be transferred aboard the Ulus Star, which will take them to the fleet bases.
Who faced "Liman"?
The second participant in the clash (initially of unknown affiliation) was initially designated by the Department of Information and Mass Communications as "Ashot-7" - in this form it is now presented in the main Russian media. However, attempts to find such a ship in the registers were unsuccessful.
A little later, the Turkish coast guard clarified: the Liman was rammed by a livestock carrier with the difficult name Yozarsif-H.
This ship with a deadweight of 2103 tons was built in 1977 in Hamburg and has changed owners and names several times. At the moment, it is assigned to the port of Lome (Togolese Republic) and operates on the lines of the Mediterranean, Black and Red Seas in the interests of the Lebanese livestock company Hammami Livestock. On the evening of April 26, the cattle truck left the Romanian port of Midia and was heading for Jordanian Aqaba.
Turkish authorities reported that Yozarsif-H did not receive visible damage and is currently still in the area of the accident.
What is "Liman"?
Liman was built in 1970 in Gdansk, Poland, at the Stocznia Polnocna shipyard. According to the original design, this is a civilian hydrographic vessel of project 861 (displacement of about 1.6 thousand tons, speed of 17 knots), and the Polish shipyard delivered 29 such hulls. Of these, only nine were originally built as medium reconnaissance ships (between 1968 and 1976).
Liman was used as a hydrographic vessel (first in the Baltic, since 1974 in the Black Sea), and in 1989 it was converted into a reconnaissance ship.
Ships of this type are designed to monitor the ships and formations of the fleet of a potential enemy, exercises and tests of new weapons systems. They are equipped with a wide range of electronic intelligence and radio intelligence equipment, as well as a hydroacoustic complex. As a rule, the set of equipment is not typical, many ships have their own specialization and are equipped with separate special-purpose systems (including underwater vehicles or radiation monitoring equipment).
"Liman" was part of the 519th separate division of reconnaissance ships of the Black Sea Fleet and was based in Yuzhnaya Bay (Sevastopol) along with two more ships of the same type ("Kildin" and "Ekvator"), as well as the ship of project 864 "Priazovye".
In the spring of 1999, Liman entered the Adriatic Sea, where at that moment forces were deployed that were conducting an operation against Yugoslavia.
There is one aspect
If the coordinates of the Liman flooding site transmitted to the media are correct, then the depths in this area are approximately 85-95 meters. This creates a problem that should concern the Russian military right now. The fact is that reconnaissance ships, as we have already noted, are literally crammed with various non-trivial equipment, including very secret ones.
If the ship sank to the north, where the shelf abruptly breaks off to depths of up to 500-1000 meters, the safety of secrets would cause less concern. And that is not the end: it is enough to recall the story of the American attempt to raise the submarine K-129, sunk in the Pacific Ocean, on board of which there were three missiles with nuclear warheads and special communications equipment.
From a depth of about 90 meters, it is much easier to get what you are looking for. It is possible that a hunt for this equipment will unfold in the near future, even if the Russian military tries to launch an operation to lift the vessel as quickly as possible (in any case, preparations for such an operation will not be quick).
Around noon on April 27, near the entrance to the Black Sea Bosporus, the Russian reconnaissance ship Liman and the Togo-flagged Yozarsif-H cattle carrier collided. As a result, "Liman" received a hole and sank. 78 crew members were rescued, no one was hurt.
According to various sources, at 11:44 or 11:53 Moscow time, two ships collided near the entrance to the Black Sea Bosporus Strait. One of them was the Liman medium reconnaissance ship of the Black Sea Fleet.
At 12:00 Moscow time, the ships of the Black Sea Fleet received an order to enter the collision area. An-26 aircraft with a rescue team on board was also sent there. However, as a result of the collision, the Liman received a hole below the waterline in the starboard side and sank at about 14:48 Moscow time. Judging by the coordinates transmitted by the media, this happened about 37 kilometers northwest of the Rumeli-Feneri lighthouse, which stands at the entrance to the Bosphorus.
A little earlier, the nearby Russian dry cargo ship Ulus Star, which was heading from Astrakhan to Italian Ravenna, was promptly redirected to this area. Two boats of the Turkish coast guard, as well as the culprit of the collision, which will be discussed below, took on board the entire crew of the Liman - 78 people. Initial reports of 15 missing were not confirmed. People will be handed over to the Ulus-Star, which will take them to the bases of the fleet.
A little later, the Turkish coast guard clarified: the Liman was rammed by a livestock carrier with the difficult name Yozarsif-H. This ship with a deadweight of 2103 tons was built in 1977 in Hamburg and has changed owners and names several times. At the moment, it is assigned to the port of Lome (Togolese Republic) and operates on the lines of the Mediterranean, Black and Red Seas in the interests of the Lebanese livestock company Hammami Livestock. On the evening of April 26, the cattle truck left the Romanian port of Midia and was heading for Jordanian Aqaba.
Turkish authorities reported that Yozarsif-H did not receive visible damage and is currently still in the area of the accident.
What is "Liman"?
Liman was built in 1970 in Gdansk, Poland, at the Stocznia Polnocna shipyard. According to the original design, this is a civilian hydrographic vessel of project 861 (displacement of about 1.6 thousand tons, speed of 17 knots), and the Polish shipyard delivered 29 such hulls. Of these, only nine were originally built as medium reconnaissance ships (between 1968 and 1976).
Liman was used as a hydrographic vessel (first in the Baltic, since 1974 in the Black Sea), and in 1989 it was converted into a reconnaissance ship.
Ships of this type are designed to monitor the ships and formations of the fleet of a potential enemy, exercises and tests of new weapons systems. They are equipped with a wide range of electronic intelligence and radio intelligence equipment, as well as a hydroacoustic complex. As a rule, the set of equipment is not typical, many ships have their own specialization and are equipped with separate special-purpose systems (including underwater vehicles or radiation monitoring equipment).
"Liman" was part of the 519th separate division of reconnaissance ships of the Black Sea Fleet and was based in Yuzhnaya Bay (Sevastopol) along with two more ships of the same type ("Kildin" and "Ekvator"), as well as the ship of project 864 "Priazovye".
In the spring of 1999, Liman entered the Adriatic Sea, where at that moment NATO forces were deployed, conducting an operation against Yugoslavia.
If the coordinates of the Liman flooding site transmitted to the media are correct, then the depths in this area are approximately 85-95 meters. This creates a problem that should concern the Russian military right now. The fact is that reconnaissance ships, as we have already noted, are literally crammed with various non-trivial equipment, including very secret ones.
If the ship sank to the north, where the shelf abruptly breaks off to depths of up to 500-1000 meters, the safety of secrets would cause less concern. And that is not the end: it is enough to recall the story of the American attempt to raise the submarine K-129, sunk in the Pacific Ocean, on board of which there were three missiles with nuclear warheads and special communications equipment.
From a depth of about 90 meters, it is much easier to get what you are looking for. It is possible that a hunt for this equipment will unfold in the near future, even if the Russian military tries to launch an operation to lift the vessel as quickly as possible (in any case, preparations for such an operation will not be quick).
Numerous occasions for jokes about the fleet (from the memorable military parade of the Ukrainian Navy) were given, perhaps, by the Ukrainian boat "Priluki". The jokes got on the conveyor, and therefore, as soon as the missile boat of the Ukrainian Navy appeared in any reports, barbs immediately appeared that this was “the one who almost drowned himself in the parade.” We were answered with barbs about the black smoke of the Admiral Kuznetsov and two fighters from its aviation wing “drowned” during landing while performing tasks in Syria.
Against this background, continues to be embodied (according to at least, in official statements) a program according to which by 2020 the Russian army and navy will be re-equipped by 70%. Until 2020, there is not so much time left as it was initially seen, and the relevance of the rearmament program is becoming more and more obvious.
The reason for thinking about the relevance of modernizing the army and navy is “thrown up” not only by the approach of NATO infrastructure to our borders and the increasingly odious statements of the so-called “partners”, but also by such incidents as the one that happened the day before. Foggy incident "due to fog" in the Black Sea.
Initially, everything looked even comical. The Russian research vessel "Liman" collided with a certain vessel "Ashot-7" in the southwestern part of the water area and received a hole. This was reported in the press service of the Ministry of Defense. The very name of the vessel with which the Liman collided really set a certain irony. However, with each new minute, clarifying information came, which indicated that the matter was much more serious than it seemed from the first publications.
There were reports that the hole received by the medium reconnaissance ship "Liman" of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy was below the waterline, and that the crew was "fighting for survivability." Against this background, foreign sources reported that 15 Russian sailors were allegedly missing. Almost immediately after that, the Turkish media came out with reports that rescue ships from the Istanbul Coast Guard headed for the collision site of two ships (and this is about 40 km from the Bosphorus).
It turned out that the ship that Liman collided with was actually called Youzarsif H. According to data from the monitoring ship movement, Youzarsif H is a vessel designed to transport livestock, and was moving at that moment from the Romanian port of Midia to the Jordanian “Red Sea” port of Aqaba, located a few kilometers from the Israeli Eilat.
63 Russian sailors during the operation were rescued by the Turkish coast guard, another 15 - the very ones whom foreign media hastened to record as missing, were rescued by the crews of the Youzarsif H itself, which was sailing under the flag of the Togolese Republic. It is noteworthy that a short time after the collision, the Russian reconnaissance ship built in 1970 sank. At the same time, the livestock carrier received minimal damage and, after inspection, calmly continued its movement along the route.
At this time, the Ministry of Defense continued to talk about the collision of Liman with the ship Ashot-7.
The MarineTraffic portal presents a schematic "report" of the collision site and the rescue operation:
Publication from "Youzarsif H" from 2013:
And this is the exterior of the same "cattle truck":
He's from a different angle:
The owner of the vessel is the Lebanese company Hammami Livestock. It is one of the largest seafaring companies in the Middle East.
The owner of the "cattle truck" provides more information about "Youzarsif H". The year of construction is 1977. In 2013, the ship was re-equipped, as evidenced by the very video that was published above. Port of registry - Lome (Togo). Length - 81 m, width - more than 13 m. Draft 5.9 m. At the same time, it is capable of transporting about 1.5 thousand head of livestock.
Some characteristics of the Russian "Liman": length 73.3 m, width 10.8 m (according to other sources - 11.2 m), draft 3.9 m. Displacement 1.56 thousand tons.
As you can see, there is no superiority in size “by an order of magnitude”. In this regard, the infliction of fatal damage to a warship against the background of minor damage to a vessel flying the Togolese flag looks strange. One of the reasons for the incident is that, moving in the fog, a civilian ship with its bow "ripped open" the side of the Liman. This led to the fact that the Liman took on board about 800 tons of water and sank.
From the message:
To avoid the loss of life, the commander decided to leave the ship and transfer to life rafts.
What attracts attention? The Russian research (medium reconnaissance) ship "Liman" took part in reconnaissance activities off the coast of Syria. In February, he monitored the NATO naval exercise Sea Shield 2017. On board is the Don ship-based radar system, adopted by the Soviet Navy 60 years ago. On the "Liman" - hydroacoustic station GAS "Bronze", radio and electronic intelligence equipment "Rotor-N", "Watch-M", "Watch-10", "Watch-12", MRR-1-7, "Vitok -AK", "Vizir-M", "Uzel", "Kaira". This is from the known. In fact, a set of equipment for conducting reconnaissance "Liman" is classified as "secret" - for obvious reasons. However, parts of this “open” set, even if some of its elements have long been crying for high-quality modernization, should have been enough to detect the approach of almost any large vessel even in fog. After all, a Lebanese cattle truck under the Togolese flag is unlikely to have received stealth technology in 2013 after re-equipment ...
And if you believe other sources (including Turkish meteorologists), then the weather in the area of \u200b\u200bthe collision was completely clear. And this raises even more questions about the reasons for the collision of the reconnaissance ship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation and a cargo ship. If he "saw" and tried to warn of a dangerous approach, and this one, either "Ashot", or "Youzarsif H" did not react, then what could "Liman" oppose - shooting from small arms? Well, not the "Needle" for the cattle truck ...
Official information will appear only after a survey by the command of the fleet and investigative structures of the sailors from the Liman, but you should not expect that all the details of the incident 20 nautical miles from Istanbul will immediately become public. Moreover, the ship is not at all simple, even taking into account the fact that it went to him - a hard worker - the 5th decade.
Well, asking the official representatives of the fleet command the question of what happened to the Liman in the Black Sea is practically meaningless, since the general answer is unlikely to go beyond the title of this material.
The main thing is that people are safe.
Scout of the Black Sea Fleet "Liman". This should have been done immediately after the collision to clarify the circumstances, Admiral, Advisor to the Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Igor Kasatonov told the Central Naval Portal.
According to Admiral Kasatonov, the detention of the intruder was "the first thing the Russian authorities and the command of the Black Sea Fleet should have done." Igor Kasatonov headed the Black Sea Fleet in 1991-1992. If the violating ship has not yet been detained, this is an "omission", which "indicates the low qualification of the responsible persons," the admiral says.
“The dry cargo ship had to be detained, anchored, the travel documents were arrested and a sea protest was immediately filed,” the admiral believes. for the damage done, because he rammed us." Kasatonov added that in order to detain the cargo ship, a high-speed ship should have been sent or the Turkish authorities should have been contacted. Shortly after the collision, the low-speed sea rescue tug SB-739 (its speed is up to 15 knots) from Sevastopol to the crash site of the Liman.
"This is a disaster, such a disgrace... Those who are supposed to understand should understand, but the issue of the detention of Youzarsif H should be immediately raised," Igor Kasatonov summed up. Speaking about the April 27 incident, he also did not rule out the possibility of a provocation.
The ex-commander of the BOD "Petropavlovsk" captain of the 1st rank Alexander Kuzmin agrees with Kasatonov. "The admiral is right, it is necessary to detain. Especially since these are not Turkish territorial waters. We could send a ship to detain or send a helicopter. If there was bad weather, we could wait a bit or, in extreme cases, request the Turkish side." At the same time, the presence of Youzarsif H in Constanta does not interfere with the arrest, Kuzmin noted: "This can be done by a court decision in any port."
Experts: Vessel Youzarsif H violated several rules of COLREG-72 at once
According to preliminary data, the Russian reconnaissance aircraft was at anchor and gave timely signals, announcing its location. Experts interviewed by TsVMP believe that Youzarsif H violated several provisions of the International Rules for Avoiding Collisions of Vessels (COLREGs-72) at once. The first, Kuzmin notes, is leaving the scene of the incident before the act of the incident was drawn up: “It had to be signed by the commander of our reconnaissance and the captain of the dry cargo ship. However, in the situation of a sinking ship, this was difficult to do.” The second violation is too high, unsafe speed. "If the ship was sailing at 10-12 knots, this is also a clear violation," the officer added. In his opinion, the reason for the death of the "Liman" is either "sloppiness on the part of the cargo ship's crew, or deliberate actions. In any case, there are questions about the quality of compliance with rule No. 5 of the COLREGs. The investigation will show."
Whether an investigation has been launched by the Russian side is still unknown. The press service of the Black Sea Fleet refused to give any comments to TsVMP. It is also unknown whether the blood of the Liman crew was tested for alcohol content. Sevastopol Commissioner for Human Rights Pavel Butsay told the Central Naval Portal that the sailors from Liman are in Sevastopol and feel well. The human rights activist has no information about the results of the interrogation of the crew.
Russia can either detain Youzarsif H or sue
Warships can pursue other vessels, and not only in their own territorial sea, Vasily Gutsulyak, chief scientific consultant of the Center for Maritime Law, said. He cited the example of the pursuit in 1995 by Russian ships of the Panama-flagged Imia, which left Novorossiysk without permission, hoping to avoid debts on port and other fees. Then the border guards opened fire to kill to stop the intruder. Later, the court recognized the actions of the Russian side as lawful. Moreover, judging by open data, there are violations by the Youzarsif H team, the expert added.Since the Liman incident took place in Turkey's exclusive economic zone, the possible detention should have been agreed with Ankara, Gutsulyak said. “I don’t see any problems resolving this issue with the Turkish authorities and taking actions to detain Youzarsif H, by our forces or by the Turkish ones,” he said. “You can apply not only to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, but also to the local court in Constanta.” .
Liman's status as a military intelligence agent means that the interests of the state are directly affected in the incident, the expert believes. Russia needs to provide redress. So the use of warships in this case is legitimate, says Vasily Gutsulyak. “Time is running out, we need to figure it out, find out who is to blame,” he added. “At the same time, it is not often possible to establish one hundred percent guilt of a vessel in modern judicial practice. The blame is distributed between the parties.”
The ship that sank the Liman is waiting for repairs in Constanta, the owner of the cargo blames the Black Sea Fleet scout
The livestock cargo ship Youzarsif H has been in the Romanian port of Constanta since April 28 and is awaiting repairs. This is reported by the local TV channel Digi24. Marinetraffic.com website data confirms this information.As can be seen from the report of the Romanian TV channel, the surface part of the dry cargo ship under the flag of Togo was almost not damaged after the collision with the Liman. The ship lost her port anchor and slightly damaged the stem. Mahmoud Karazi, the owner of the animals transported by the cargo ship, called Russian sailors responsible for the collision. He refers to some "investigation" conducted by Ankara. However, no information about this could be found in Turkish sources.
The vessel belongs to the Lebanese company Hammani Livestock, registered in Tripoli. According to Romanian media, Youzarsif H will be repaired in Constanta or Midia. The Russian authorities do not comment on the fate of Liman. After removing valuable equipment, the ship can be moved to a greater depth or destroyed.
The medium reconnaissance ship of the project 861M of the Black Sea Fleet "" on Thursday, April 27, collided with the cargo ship Youzarsif H and received a hole. The collision occurred around 11:45 Moscow time about 30 miles from the Bosphorus. The scout received a hole below the waterline, the crew for its survivability, but the ship sank at a point with approximate coordinates 41.50°/28.95°. According to Turkish media, Liman sank at about 14:48. The crew of the boat of the Turkish Navy and the Turkish Coast Guard. Depths in the area of the shipwreck range from 50 to 200 meters. Now at the site of the shipwreck there is a marine rescue tug of the Black Sea Fleet SB-739 and an experimental vessel "Seliger".
