The ill-fated ship Ruby, which was in a state of disrepair and was sailing from the Murmansk region to Africa with a cargo of Russian fertilizers on board, is not allowed into European ports for the necessary repairs. The reason is that the chemicals are based on ammonium nitrate, which is a component of explosives. Given the presence of 20 thousand tons of cargo on the Ruby, European officials are declaring the danger of its detonation. Some politicians are deliberately escalating the situation, such as the former Lithuanian ambassador to the UK Eitvydas Bajarunas, who called the Ruby a "floating megabomb".

The media recalls the tragedy that occurred in 2020 in Beirut, where as a result of the explosion of 2.7 thousand tons of ammonium nitrate, more than 200 people died and over 300 thousand residents lost their homes. Officially, the Ruby flies the flag of Malta and is managed by the Emirati company Serenity Shipping. The beneficiaries of both the vessel and the cargo remain unknown, but information is circulating online that the transported fertilizers may belong to Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, who is under sanctions from the EU, the US and the UK. He is the founder and, until recently, the beneficiary of the Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK) and the mineral fertilizer producer EuroChem.

After being included in Western sanctions lists, the oligarch transferred the business to his wife Alexandra, a citizen of Serbia and Croatia, but the trick failed and she also ended up under sanctions. Melnichenko’s possible connection with the Ruby is indicated not only by the specific nature of the cargo. It is known, in particular, that the businessman has citizenship of the Emirates, where the Serenity Shipping company is “registered”. In addition, the ship left a port in the Murmansk region, and the oligarch has long had commercial interests in this region.

Today, the enterprises belonging to him do not disclose information about their owner, but until recently SUEK was the official founder of OJSC Murmansk Commercial Sea Port, and EuroChem was the official founder of Kovdor Mining and Processing Plant. Because of the sanctions, Melnichenko could have gone ahead with the scheme to supply fertilizers, which failed due to an accident and the need to repair the Ruby. This was successfully used by European officials, who rushed to present the ship as a source of the "Russian threat".