What are the Russians hiding????

The pics are 1 the Arctic Sea Cargo ship and 2 a Russian Ilyushin IL-76 Cargo Plane.

Ok everyone knows about the "hijacking" if I may use that term of the Arctic sea cargo ship.

Something does not ring true about this!!!!

The Maltese-registered Arctic Sea left Finland around July 23 with a delivery to Algeria on August 4. It made contact with British coastguards in Dover on July 28 but went missing three days later.

The Malta Maritime Authority said that it had received reports that the ship was boarded for 12 hours by armed masked men on July 24. A Swedish police spokeswoman said that everything had seemed normal when Swedish authorities had a brief telephone call with someone identified as the captain on July 31.

The Arctic Sea went missing after passing through the Channel from Finland, prompting fears that it had fallen victim to the first act of piracy in European waters for hundreds of years.

Dmitri Rogozin, the Russian ambassador to Nato, said that the ship had been attacked by a “well-organised network” of pirates. He said that the issue of security at sea would be raised at a Nato-Russia Council meeting next month.

The Arctic Sea was then spotted by coastguards on Aug 14 in international waters 500 miles off the West African island archipelago of Cape Verde and the vessel was placed under ongoing surveillance by Russian and Nato military.

Finnish police investigators confirmed this weekend that a ransom demand, said to be around GBP900,000 had been received by the Arctic Sea's Russian owners.

Anyway Russian authorities have not given information on the precise circumstances of the ship's interception near Cape Verde, some 2500 miles away from the vessel's intended location.

The naval operation, which took place at 21:00 GMT on Sunday night, followed a weekend of joint Russia-Nato surveillance of the "hijacked" Maltese flagged ship culminating in its detention by the Russian anti-submarine frigate, the Ladny.

The men accused of hijacking the Arctic Sea were brought to Russia yesterday as investigators continued to interrogate crew members about the ship’s mysterious voyage.

Eleven crew members and the eight suspected hijackers landed in separate aircraft at a military airfield outside Moscow, where the accused were led away in handcuffs by special forces troops.

Speculation over a possible secret military cargo on the vessel was intensified by the manner of their return.

The two groups and an investigative team flew to Moscow in three Il-76 transporters, one of Russia’s largest aircraft, which are normally used to move heavy weapons.

A quick look on wiki tells us that the plane was originally built for the military, but has subsequently seen extensive service as a commercial freighter, especially for the delivery of outsized or very heavy cargo.

Well call me bluff old sceptic but rumours were all over the place as to the cargo on the ship at point of hijack. Even the Somali pirates have the brains to go for oil tankers and cruise liners. A million quid worth of wood as per the original ships manifest is not a hijack target.

So why would the Russians chase it to Africa?
Why would the Captain with Navy assistance return the ship to a Black Sea Russian port?
Why require 3 heavy lift Aircraft flown from Russia to Cape Verde to bring 8 bad guys and 11 crew back to Russia?........what for some wood!!!!
Anyone for dodgy Russian weapons sales to the Middle East??????