MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian warship and cargo ship rescued 68 people overnight from a boat in the Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.
He said in a statement that the Admiral Gorshkov warship was the first to receive a distress call from the Avalon, which he described as a “yacht-like vessel” flying the Greek and German flag.
The Gorshkov and the cargo ship, the Pizhma, carried out a successful rescue operation and the passengers received medical assistance and were transferred to Greek Coast Guard boats off the island of Kalymnos, the statement said.
He gave no details of the passengers or their nationalities.
Admiral Gorshkov is one of the main Russian warships and has been used in the past to test and deploy hypersonic missiles. It was unclear what weapons he was carrying at the time of the incident.
Hundreds of people, mostly from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan, fear they were drowned in a boat capsizing off Greece last week.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)