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The Russian captain Boris Prokoshev, hired ship “Ross” for transportation of the fatal ammonium nitrate, said about the detention in the port of Beirut and letters to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lay a few years in the port of Beirut nearly three thousand tons of ammonium nitrate exploded, blowing the whole city and killing more than 100 people. Prokoshev said in an interview with the newspaper “Sibir’. Realities” that he was hired at the time when a ship is bought, a native of Khabarovsk Igor Grechushkin. A businessman signed a contract with Mozambique for the supply of fertilizers. To pick up the cargo had to Batumi and head to the destination, but along the way came the order from the shipowner to go to Lebanon and to take the additional load.

Prokoshev says that already in the port it turned out that the crew has not been paid, neither the food nor compulsory port charges or accrued salaries of the previous crew. The authorities of Beirut banned the “Rossa” to leave Lebanon. After that, the captain began to regularly write letters to the presidential administration of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the Russian Consulate in Lebanon asking for help.

“I wrote every month Putin. The Consulate told me: what do you want Putin sent special forces?” — says the captain.

After several such responses, the team sold the fuel from the ship and hired lawyers, after 11 months, they returned home, and the ship with nitrate remained in Beirut. Over time, the abandoned ship sank in the port because of the holes, and the load was never applied. According to the captain, Grechushkin received an advance payment for the delivery of the fertilizer in the amount of one million dollars and now lives in Cyprus. Mozambique could not claim the cargo, as it has not been paid. The Lebanese authorities could dispose of the vessel and nitrate, at its discretion, but did not, said Prokoshev.

“They [the Lebanese authorities] are to blame. From [vessel with dangerous cargo] it was more likely to get rid of,” said the captain.

Earlier it became known that the security service of Cyprus Grechushkina wanted in connection with the explosion in Beirut, which occurred in the evening of 4 August. Initially it was assumed that the port exploded pyrotechnics, but the Minister of internal Affairs of Lebanon Mohammed Fehmi believes that exploded ammonium nitrate seized from a Russian businessman. The exact cause of PE is established. Earlier it was reported 78 dead, and later their number increased to 100. Four thousand people were injured.