photo credit: mikel_maron

I know I am missing several pieces of information but I cannot help wondering about the curious case of Arctic Sea, the ship which was hijacked or not hijacked while carrying weapons to Iran or timber to Algeria, depending on who you ask. The whole thing seems so bizarre with all its claimed hijackings and connections to Israel etc. that it seems almost impossible to take a grip on it all (more info, though, about the incident can be found  here and here and in plenty of other places as well.

There are so many things that just do not fit. Take the route for example. If you want to smuggle arms from Russia to Iran, why do you wanna go through the Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean when you can just row your boat over the Caspian Sea? It is not only quicker, but I suppose a lot easier as well, no need to worry about the coast guards and inspections of god knows how many different, more or less well-functioning states?

Then again, if the missiles or arms to be taken to Iran were in Kaliningrad, I suppose there was no other option. But if so why go to Finland to get timber, why not just get the “fake” cargo directly from Kaliningrad, im sure you can buy timber from there as well..

Ok, maybe that was done in order to lose the real “origin”of the cargo. Finland and timber, I do not think it can get any less suspicious than that. But what the hell was this hijacking thing then? Hijack timber in the Baltic Sea? Just buy an axe and go to Lapland and you’ll get it lot cheaper and easier.

In any case, let’s suppose there was no “real” hijackers, let’s assume it really was Mossad or some Israeli organization who was behind it all. But then again, why let the boat leave the harbor in the first place, why not just make a call to Lavrov or some other Russian authority when the boat was already in Kalinigrad and say: “hey, some of your general or someone is trying to smuggle your missiles?” Or later on in the port of Pietarsaari in Finland? One could assume this would be of interest at least to the Russian authorities… “Really? Well, we better take a look then before it sails..” would seem like a likely answer..

Then again, I quess it is possible that the whole thing was approved by the Russian authorities. However, that takes us back to the first question, why not just sail across the Caspian Sea? Could not get much more simple and quicker than that. Or maybe it is just that the weather in the Caspian Sea can get really nasty..

Or maybe it is possible it really was just timber. But in that case why hijack (or whatever you wanna call it), and why switch off the tracking device? And how incompetent is the captain if he ends up in Cap Verde when he was supposed to go to Algeria? I have heard of drunken seamen but this has to be the record. Furthermore, the market price for timber has to ridiculously high if it is worth on the part of the Russian authorities to send so many vessels after it (including two nuclear subs..) and then fly the suspects on three different army jets back to Russia.

No wonder everybody is so interested to know what really happened, even though it is also possible one will never know for sure. There is no shortage of trying though, Google News gives the words “Arctic Sea” and “ship” English newscount of 1.639. That also goes on to show, that if you wanna do something in secret, this really is not a good way to do it..