Russian ship carrying 20,000 tons of explosives spotted off Kent coast

A Russian ship described as a "floating bomb" due to the amount of explosives on board has been spotted off the coast of Kent.

Nicknamed the Ruby, the vessel was seen on maritime radar VesselFinder after having reportedly been stuffed with cargo at a port in Kandalaksha, northern Russia, on August 22. The ship then headed to Las Palmas, Canary Islands, making a port stop on route in Tromsø, Norway, on September 3 during a storm.

It suffered damage to its propeller, hull and rudder during the bad weather, and its presence in Norwegian port reportedly caused anxiety amongst locals. The Ruby is carrying tons of the explosive material ammonium nitrate - the same substance which caused the catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut in Lebanon in 2021, killing 218 people.

According to reports, the ship is carrying around 20,000 tonnes of explosive material - nearly ten times as much as the 2,750 tons which caused the deadly Beirut blast. Following local fears, the ship was asked to leave Tromsø and was tracked heading north again near the municipality of Andøy which is an important military base.

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In May, the Norwegian Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said: "Andøya plays an important role in national security, allied defence and technological development. The growing military-strategic significance of the base for Norway and NATO requires that we continue manned guarding."

It has now been spotted off the coast of Kent and due to its explosive cargo it has been dubbed the “floating bomb”. Ammonium nitrate is highly dangerous and is used in mining as well as widely in agriculture.

As it is cheap and easy to obtain it has often been used by terrorists in recent decades. It was used in the IRA bomb attacks on the Baltic Exchange and Bishopsgate in the City Of London in 1992 and 1993, as well as the car bomb which struck Docklands in 1996, and in the Manchester city centre bomb attack in 1999.