A damaged Malta-flagged cargo ship carrying 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate from Russia was spotted near a military base in NATO-member Norway, days after it was ordered to leave a port amid growing concerns about the safety of nearby inhabitants.
The Ruby, which picked up the cargo from Russia's northern port of Kandalaksha on August 22, was headed to the Canary Islands' Las Palmas in the Atlantic but docked at the industrial port of Tromsø, Norway, on September 3 after seeking refuge from a storm, Norwegian online newspaper The Barents Observer reported. It sustained damage to its propeller, hull and rudder.
The ship was ordered by police to depart from the Tromsø port as fears grew about the safety of residents nearby. The vessel's initial docking point was near a university campus, a university hospital and hundreds of residential homes.
Ammonium nitrate is a potentially explosive substance used in fertilizer and explosives. The Ruby is loaded with seven times more ammonium nitrate than the 2,750 tons that exploded at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon in 2020, a disaster that killed at least 218 people.
Authorities haven't explicitly said the cargo is in danger of exploding, but Tromsø police said in a statement that it was "not desirable" for the ship to undergo repairs "close to the city of Tromsø."
The Ruby departed from Tromsø on September 4, according to Marine Traffic, a global ship tracking intelligence website, and is currently located at Andenes in Norway's northern Andøy municipality, where a military base is located.
"Damaged fertilizer ship / floating bomb (depending on intentions) Ruby that got run out of Tromsø a week ago is: A) Heading for Andøya military air/space base. ETA 5h B) Have asked permission to go to Klaipėda, Lithuania for repairs," said Auonsson, an open-source intelligence account on X (formerly Twitter), on Thursday.
Newsweek has contacted Norway's minister of foreign affairs for comment by email.
The Andøya Air Station in Andøy was built after discussions were held at a meeting of NATO member states in 1951. Earlier this year, 37.5 million kroner (about $3.5 million) was allocated for protecting the air base, which will soon become a base for long-range drones for sea surveillance.
"Andøya plays an important role in national security, allied defense and technological development," Norwegian Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said in May. "The growing military-strategic significance of the base for Norway and NATO requires that we continue manned guarding."
The decision was made amid mounting tensions between NATO and Russia over President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, now in its third year. Moscow has accused the alliance of involvement in the war because it is providing Kyiv with military assistance and weapons.
Russian officials have regularly floated the possibility that their country could strike NATO members in response to providing aid to Ukraine.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said Thursday that the Ruby will not be granted permission to dock at the Port of Klaipėda to undergo repairs, local media reported.
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