Why didn’t the ship send out a distress signal? Why did Israeli President Shimon Peres pay a surprise visit to Russia a day after the ship was rescued? Why did Russia wait so long to send its navy to find the ship?

On orders from the Kremlin, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov sent a completely disproportionate force, including destroyers and submarines, to look for the vessel.

It took five days for them to find it, the Defense Ministry said, even though the Foreign Ministry later announced that it was fully aware of the Arctic Sea’s coordinates the entire time. To fly the alleged pirates and the crew back to Moscow — a group of only 19 men — Russia dispatched two enormous military-cargo p...

Why didn’t the ship send out a distress signal? Why did Israeli President Shimon Peres pay a surprise visit to Russia a day after the ship was rescued? Why did Russia wait so long to send its navy to find the ship?

On orders from the Kremlin, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov sent a completely disproportionate force, including destroyers and submarines, to look for the vessel.

It took five days for them to find it, the Defense Ministry said, even though the Foreign Ministry later announced that it was fully aware of the Arctic Sea’s coordinates the entire time. To fly the alleged pirates and the crew back to Moscow — a group of only 19 men — Russia dispatched two enormous military-cargo planes. And then on their arrival, the ship’s crew was detained along with the alleged hijackers for days of questioning, with no access to their families or the media.

“Even from the basic facts, without assumptions, it is clear that this was not just piracy,” says Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime journal Sovfrakht, which has been tracking unusual incidents on the high seas for decades. “I’ve never seen anything like this. These are some of the most heavily policed waters in the world. You cannot just hide a ship there for weeks without government involvement.”

Read “Russia’s Moves Raise Doubts About Obama’s ‘Reset.’ “

"The most likely explanation is that the Israelis intercepted this cargo, which had been meant for Syria or Iran," says Yulya Latynina, a prominent political commentator and radio host on Echo of Moscow, a station owned by state-controlled gas giant Gazprom. "They will now use the incident as a bargaining chip with Russia over weapons sales in the region, while allowing Russia to save face by taking its empty ship back home." When contacted by TIME, both the Israeli Prime Minister's office and Mossad, Israel's secret service, declined to comment. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

But in an Aug. 18 statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Peres had discussed "the sale of Russian...

"The most likely explanation is that the Israelis intercepted this cargo, which had been meant for Syria or Iran," says Yulya Latynina, a prominent political commentator and radio host on Echo of Moscow, a station owned by state-controlled gas giant Gazprom. "They will now use the incident as a bargaining chip with Russia over weapons sales in the region, while allowing Russia to save face by taking its empty ship back home." When contacted by TIME, both the Israeli Prime Minister's office and Mossad, Israel's secret service, declined to comment. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

But in an Aug. 18 statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Peres had discussed "the sale of Russian weapons and military hardware to countries hostile to Israel" with his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, on that day during four hours of closed-door talks in the Russian city of Sochi. According to the statement, Peres "stressed that Israel has concrete proof of Russian weapons being transferred to terrorist organizations by Iran and Syria, especially to Hamas and Hizballah."

Russia's chief investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, told official state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta that a band of new-age pirates, possibly in connivance with the crew, is all that lies behind the Arctic Sea mystery. But he did concede that there are questions that need answering. "We don't rule out the possibility that [the ship] was carrying more than just timber," he said, without elaborating further.

Read more >>>