Russia Sends New Anti-Piracy Task Force to Gulf of Aden

A task force from Russia’s Pacific Fleet, led by the Udaloy class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, has departed on an new anti-piracy mission off the Somali coast, the fleet’s spokesman Capt. 1st Rank Roman Martov said.

The task force, which also includes the Irkut tanker and the Alatau rescue tug boat, will make an official visit to the port of Mumbai in India and conduct joint drills with the Indian navy on the way to the Gulf of Aden.

“The Marshal Shaposhnikov destroyer has two Ka-27 naval helicopters and a unit of naval infantry on board,” Martov said on Friday.

During its first anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden in 2010, Marshal Shaposhnikov freed a Russian tanker hijacked by Somali pirates.

Task forces from the Russian Navy, usually led by Udaloy class destroyers, operate in the area on a rotating basis.

Russian warships have successfully escorted hundreds of commercial vessels from various countries through pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast since 2008, when Russia joined the international anti-piracy mission in the region.

Russia has recently asked France to allow the deployment of two Ilyushin Il-38 naval reconnaissance planes at a French base in Djibouti to facilitate its anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden.

Hired Guns Tame The Somali Coast

At the moment there's a booming market in security guards for merchant ships plying the waters off Somalia and adjacent areas (Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, western Indian Ocean, Straits of Hormuz). While many ships get by on-the-cheap by forming convoys that are guarded by warships of the international anti-piracy patrol, others have schedules that preclude waiting for a convoy to form. Most of these ships are now using a detachment of 4-5 armed guards, which cost them about $40,000 for the short trip through pirate invested waters.

It's not just the armed former soldiers and marines now riding on the most choice targets that scare off the pirates, but also all the dozens of boats (the size of seagoing fishing boats) that ferry the armed guards between African and Arabian ports to the ships to be guarded. The pirates have learned to keep clear of these boats as well, as they are full of heavily armed men willing to undertake some target practice before reaching their merchant ship and going on duty.

The rapid growth in the use of armed guard (who were on ten percent of large ships a year ago, and some 70 percent now) and more aggressive operations by the international anti-pirate patrol have caused ship captures by pirates to decline by two-thirds this year. The reduction in ransom money has led to a collapse of the economic boom in and around the northern Somalia port towns where the pirates were based. There are now a lot of unemployed pirates and those still at sea have to proceed much more cautiously.