Russian warship escorts 9 commercial vessels off African coast
22:24 16/09/2010 MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian destroyer RFS Admiral Levchenko started on Thursday escorting a convoy of nine civilian ships through the pirate-infested waters off the Horn of Africa, a Russian Navy spokesman said.
"The large ASW ship Admiral Levchenko is currently escorting a convoy of nine civilian ships with 26 Russian nationals on board," the spokesman said, adding that the operation would continue through September 19.
A task force led by the Northern Fleet's Admiral Levchenko, an Udaloy class guided-missile destroyer, arrived in the Gulf of Aden on July 3 to join the international anti-piracy mission near Somalia. The Russian mission also includes the Olekma tanker and the SB-36 tugboat of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
The SB-36 tugboat thwarted on August 3 an attack of two pirate boats on the Russian-flagged Dafna tanker in the southern part of the Red Sea.
According to the London-based International Maritime Bureau, the number of pirate attacks worldwide decreased in the first half of 2010 by 34 percent year-on-year mostly due to the ongoing anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden.
The Russian Navy has maintained a presence off the Horn of Africa with warships operating on a rotation basis. Russia joined international anti-piracy efforts off the Somali coast in October 2008.
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