Ship in dire need of repairs carries explosive cargo but cant dock because ports fear Beirut-type explosion

Ports throughout Europe have turned away a badly-damaged cargo ship because of its potentially explosive cargo: a mountain of Russian fertilizer that one foreign ambassador called a “floating megabomb.”But it’s not just the MV Ruby’s load of 20,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate that’s giving port officials pause — even though a far smaller load of the same fertilizer component devastated the Port of Beirut in 2020 when it blew, according to the New York Times.It’s that the 600-foot vessel — which is registered in Malta and owned by Ruby Enterprise, a Maltese company — is limping along the northern European coastline laden with Russian fertilizer from a Russian port.That makes some worry that it could be a Trojan horse meant to sabotage some unsuspecting European port.“When we are dealing with Russia or other international actors that are unfriendly to us, we always keep this possibility in mind,” Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said after the country’s prime minister told Parliament the ship wouldn’t be allowed to dock there.Similar sentiments among European leaders have left the ship in limbo, floating off the coast of southeastern England for the last week with a cracked hull and damaged propeller as its managers in the United Arab Emirates try to assuage the public that the ship is no threat to them, the Times said.But they’re not getting far.The Ruby’s voyage was almost doomed from the start.It left the Russian port of Kandalaksha, on the country’s northwestern coast, back in August.But it ran aground soon after, and the wounds it sustained quickly stopped it from continuing to its destination ports in Africa, the Times said.For weeks after, the ship sailed around the European coast, searching in vain for a friendly port that would allow it to repair and refurbish its shattered infrastructure.It headed to Norway, where port officials detained it outside the city of Tromso on Sept.

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