{"id":15021,"date":"2026-05-13T07:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/15021\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T07:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:05:07","slug":"russian-ship-mysteriously-sank-may-have-had-nuclear-reactors-for-n-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/15021\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian ship mysteriously sank may have had nuclear reactors for N. Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Russian cargo ship,\u00a0Ursa Major, which sank after a series of explosions in unexplained circumstances, may have been carrying two nuclear reactors bound for\u00a0North Korea,<\/a> according to a CNN report on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The circumstances surrounding the Ursa Major\u2019s sinking have been shrouded in mystery since the incident occurred on December 23, 2024. Evidence from a Spanish<\/a>-led investigation revealed the circumstances surrounding the sunken ship may point towards military intervention to prevent Russia from sending nuclear technology to North Korea.<\/p>\n

Military activity around the wreckage site has heightened curiosity about its cargo and destination. United States<\/a> nuclear \u201csniffer\u201d aircraft have surveyed the site of the incident twice in the past year, according to publicly accessible flight data.\u00a0The Ursa Major was part of Russia\u2019s \u201cGhost Fleet\u201d of vessels evading sanctions and was traveling from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok via the Mediterranean Sea, according to the ship’s public manifest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The manifest also stated that the cargo on board consisted of only two large \u201cmanhole covers,\u201d 129 empty shipping containers, and two Liebherr cranes. The ship was also escorted by two Russian<\/a> Navy ships, the Ivan Gren and the Aleksandr Otrakovsky, according to a statement from the Spanish Government released earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the Ursa Major slowed dramatically, Spanish responders radioed to check if the vessel and crew were in distress. Twenty-four hours later, the ship veered sharply off its course and issued a call for help, according to the Spanish investigation. The crew reported the ship had sustained three explosions on its starboard side, near the ship\u2019s engine room, killing two crew members and leaving the ship stranded at sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis photograph taken on September 16, 2022 shows the ”Vladimir Latyshev” Russian cargo ship which was confiscated in Saint-Malo harbour, western France, since March 1, 2022, as part of the Russian asset freeze. (credit: DAMIEN MEYER\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The 14 surviving crew members were rescued by Spanish authorities before one of the Russian military vessels escorting the Ursa Major ordered nearby ships to stay 2 nautical miles away from the incident site and demanded the immediate return of the crew. However, Spanish authorities insisted they needed to conduct rescue operations and begin investigating the explosion.<\/p>\n

The Ursa Major was thought to be stable and recoverable, according to CNN.\u00a0However, at 9:50 p.m., Ivan Gren (one of the Russian Military escorts of the\u00a0Ursa Major) fired red flares over the scene, which were followed by four explosions detected by the Spanish National Seismic Network. By 11:10 p.m., the Ursa Major had sunk, according to the investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unusual circumstances surrounding the wreckage<\/p>\n

The surviving Russian crew members were brought by Spanish authorities to the port city of Cartagena immediately following their rescue, where they were debriefed by police. According to the investigation, the crew and the ship’s captain were fearful of discussing the ship’s cargo and route.<\/p>\n

Igor Vladimirovich Anisimov, the captain of the Ursa Major, reportedly came \u201cunder pressure to clarify what he meant by \u2018manhole covers,\u2019\u201d found in the ship\u2019s public manifest, the Spanish statement read.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe finally confessed that they were the components of two nuclear reactors similar to those used by submarines. According to his testimony and without being able to confirm it, they did not contain nuclear fuel,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n

The Spanish investigation concluded that the items registered as \u201cmanhole covers\u201d were likely nuclear reactor hulls used for nuclear propulsion, similar to those found in submarines.<\/p>\n

The investigation reported that the ship\u2019s captain, Anisimov, believed his route would be redirected to Rason, a North Korean port, to deliver the two reactor hulls.<\/p>\n

A week after the incident, Russian military vessels returned to the scene of the wreckage for five days before four more explosions were recorded, potentially aimed to destroy the remains of the Ursa Major on the sea floor, a source close to the investigation told CNN.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CNN also reported on the US interest in the wreckage site. State-of-the-art US military aircraft known as \u201cnuke sniffers\u201d (usually based at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska) have been recorded surveying the wreckage scene twice over the last year, once on August 28, 2025, and again on February 6, 2026.<\/p>\n

Kris Pierce, a spokesman for the base in Nebraska, told CNN the aircraft’s role \u201csupports nuclear debris collection and analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot provide additional details regarding specific flight routing, mission findings, or any partner-related coordination,\u201d Pierce added.<\/p>\n

Another \u201cnuke-sniffer\u201d took a similar flight path a year before the Ursa Major sank, suggesting the surveys conducted by the US military may be routine, according to analysts at CNN.<\/p>\n

Sources close to the investigation told CNN that the Ursa Major\u2019s captain, Anisimov, told Spanish authorities he did not recall hearing an explosion on December 22 when the ship abruptly slowed. The following day, three explosions near the engine room killed two crew members whose bodies were not recovered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Spanish investigations suggested the explosion was potentially made by a Barracuda supercavitating torpedo, a high-speed torpedo that only the US, Russia, Iran, and a few NATO member states are believed to possess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Russian cargo ship,\u00a0Ursa Major, which sank after a series of explosions in unexplained circumstances, may have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31,1737,34,5066,137,5912,1427],"class_list":{"0":"post-15021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-north-korea","8":"tag-korea","9":"tag-navy","10":"tag-north-korea","11":"tag-ocean","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-sanctions","14":"tag-ship"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}