MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian forces freed a hijacked Russian oil tanker in a helicopter-backed operation on Thursday, rescuing its crew and, according to one report, killing a Somali pirate. 
 
 Pirates on Wednesday hijacked the MV Moscow University in the Gulf of Aden with its 23-member crew and a cargo of crude oil worth $52 million. 
 
 The European Union’s naval force said the Russian warship Marshal Shaposhnikov had sent in a helicopter that returned fire after being shot at by pirates. 
 
 “Eventually the pirates surrendered and a boarding team from the Marshal Shaposhnikov arrived on board the tanker, captured all the pirates and freed the crew. All the crew are safe and well,” and EU naval statement said. 
 
 However the state-run RIA news agency, citing an unnamed Russian navy official, said the Russians had killed one pirate and captured 10. 
 
 A spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Igor Lyakin-Frolov, confirmed that some pirates had been captured, but said it was unclear if there were casualties among them. 
 
 “The captured pirates will most likely be handed over to the authorities of countries in the region,” he told Reuters. 
 
 The tanker would most likely continue on its planned voyage to China, he said. 
 
 Somali pirates are still able to seize ships despite the presence of an international fleet of warships in the busy shipping lanes linking Europe with Asia. Shipowners and insurers have paid out tens of millions of dollars in ransoms. 
 
 The successful rescue operation will please the Kremlin, which has been seeking to revive Russia’s naval muscle despite limited resources. 
 
 Russia has been sending warships to patrol and protect Russian crews and cargoes off the Horn of Africa since the hijacking of the Ukrainian-owned cargo ship MV Faina in 2008 and the death of its Russian captain. The Faina was carrying a cargo of 33 tanks. 
 
 Two Russian fishing vessels were hijacked in the early 2000s off Somalia, though Wednesday’s attack was the first on a large Russian-owned merchant vessel, said Andrew Mwangura, who runs the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program. 
 
 A spokeswoman for the tanker’s owner, Novorossiysk Shipping Company, said the crew survived the 20-hour siege by hiding in a safe room that was inaccessible to the hijackers. 
 
 Some oil tankers are sailing around southern Africa and further east into the Indian Ocean away from Somalia’s coastline to avoid the Gulf of Aden and pirates who are striking deeper out at sea, shipping experts say. ||||| Russian special forces rappelled onto a disabled oil tanker taken over by Somali pirates, freeing 23 Russian sailors and arresting the pirates during a dawn raid Thursday, the commander of the EU Naval Force said. 
 
 The raid against the Liberian-flagged ship Moscow University came 24 hours after pirates had taken the ship over and the crew locked itself in a safe room. The vessel is carrying 86,000 tons of crude oil worth about $50 million. 
 
 The special forces had been aboard the Russian anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov, which rushed to the scene after Wednesday's attack. The special forces boarded a helicopter and rappelled down to the Moscow University, Rear Adm. Jan Thornqvist, force commander of the EU Naval Force, told The Associated Press. 
 
 Shots were fired during the raid but no one was injured, Thornqvist said. 
 
 Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexei Kuznetsov said the pirates are being held aboard the tanker. Russian news agencies reported the death of one pirate during the raid, but Kuznetsov told AP that information was still being looked into. 
 
 The crew of the Moscow University had previously told officials they believed the pirates were trying to enter the engine room, Thornqvist said. The ship had been disabled and was not moving. Safe rooms, where crews seek shelter, are typically stocked with food, water and communications equipment and have reinforced doors that can only be opened from the inside. 
 
 The ship's owner, Novoship, said in a statement that the decision to free the ship was made knowing "that the crew was under safe cover inaccessible to the pirates and that the lives and health of the sailors was not threatened by anything." 
 
 Cmdr. John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force, called the rescue "an excellent operation all around." He said the EU Naval Force had been working at a tactical level with the Russians, and that EU Naval Force personnel talked to the Russian crew by VHF radio. He said the EU had offered support to the Russians. 
 
 The attack occurred about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of the Somali coast. The ship was not registered with the Maritime Security Center, said Harbour. The ship's route was from the Red Sea to China, the ship's owner said. 
 
 Novoship is a subsidiary of Sovcomflot, which is owned by the Russian government. 
 
 The fact that Russian special forces stormed the Moscow University shortly after it was taken over is in line with a trend by international military forces who are more aggressively combating piracy. 
 
 In February, Danish special forces prevented the hijacking of a ship after pirates had boarded it. Special forces from the Danish Absalon boarded the Ariella while the crew locked themselves in a secure room. 
 
 EU Naval Force ships are disrupting pirate groups and destroying their ships at a much higher rate than in previous years. U.S. warships have fired back on pirates and destroyed their boats in several skirmishes in the last several weeks. 
 
 Pirates currently hold more than 300 hostages taken from ships attacked off East Africa in the last several months. Eleven suspected Somali pirates were indicted in U.S. federal court late last month, but the international community has had problems formulating an accepted policy to try and jail pirate suspects. 
 
 Along with the increased pressure by international navies against pirates has come some criticism. 
 
 On Wednesday, a French prosecutor said a French rescuer was responsible for killing the skipper of a sailboat hijacked by Somali pirates during a rescue operation. 
 
 Chief prosecutor Hever Pavy in the western French city of Rennes said investigators found a French military bullet had killed Florent Lemacon in April 2009 when a special intervention team came to rescue his yacht, the Tanit, off the Somali coast. 
 
 Four other hostages were saved after a week on the hijacked ship. Three suspected pirates who survived the rescue operation are on trial in France. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press reporters Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report. ||||| NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew on board, Somali authorities said on Tuesday, the first time a commercial ship has been seized in the region since 2012. 
 
 Map showing the vessel track of the ARIS 13 -- a small bunker tanker capable of carrying 1,800 deadweight tonnes of fuel -- which was en route from Djibouti to Mogadishu when it was allegedly hijacked off the coast of Somalia. REUTERS/Thomson Reuters Eikon 
 
 Security forces have been sent to free the Aris 13, a regional police official said late on Tuesday. 
 
 “We are determined to rescue the ship and its crew. Our forces have set off to Alula. It is our duty to rescue ships hijacked by pirates and we shall rescue it,” Abdirahman Mohamud Hassan, director general of Puntland’s marine police forces, told Reuters by phone. 
 
 Puntland is a semi-autonomous northern region of Somalia. Alula is a port town there where pirates have taken the tanker. 
 
 Experts said the ship was an easy target and ship owners were becoming lax after a long period of calm. 
 
 The Aris 13 sent a distress call on Monday, turned off its tracking system and altered course for the Somali port town of Alula, said John Steed of the aid group Oceans Beyond Piracy. 
 
 “The ship reported it was being followed by two skiffs yesterday afternoon. Then it disappeared,” said Steed, an expert on piracy who is in contact with naval forces tracking the ship. 
 
 Aircraft from regional naval force EU Navfor were flying overhead to track the ship, he said. The force declined to comment. 
 
 The pirates brought the ship to the port town of Alula, district commissioner Mohamud Ahmed Eynab told Reuters by phone. 
 
 A pirate called Abdullahi told Reuters by telephone: “We are now heading on boats toward our colleagues holding the ship at Alula. We are carrying water, food and weapons for reinforcement.” 
 
 The Sri Lankan government said eight Sri Lankan crew were onboard and the ship flew a flag from the Comoros islands. 
 
 Data from Reuters systems showed it made a sharp turn just after it passed the Horn of Africa on its voyage from Djibouti to Mogadishu. 
 
 The 1,800 deadweight ton Aris 13 is owned by Panama company Armi Shipping and managed by Aurora Ship Management in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Equasis shipping data website, managed by the French transport ministry. 
 
 MOTHERSHIP 
 
 Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, the head of private maritime security company Dryad Maritime Intelligence, said the vessel was an easy target because it was low, slow and close to the coast. 
 
 Crews were beginning to relax their vigilance after a period of relative security for shipping, he said. 
 
 Now that the ship was captured, Somali authorities must ensure it was contained and not used as a mothership, he said, referring to a hijacked vessel used to launch attacks. 
 
 “The way that the authorities react now is crucial,” he said. 
 
 In their heyday in 2011, Somali pirates launched 237 attacks off the coast of Somalia, data from the International Maritime Bureau showed, and held hundreds of hostages. 
 
 That year, Ocean’s Beyond Piracy estimated the global cost of piracy was about $7 billion. The shipping industry bore roughly 80 percent of those costs, the group’s analysis showed. 
 
 But attacks fell sharply after ship owners tightened security and vessels stayed further away from the Somali coast. 
 
 There had only been four attempted attacks by Somali pirates in the past three years, the bureau said. 
 
 Intervention by regional naval forces that flooded into the area helped disrupt several hijack bids and improved security for the strategic trade route that leads through the Suez Canal and links the oilfields of the Middle East with European ports. 
 
 Before Tuesday’s hijacking, only one crew remained captive in Somalia. The crew of 17 Iranians was taken two years ago, but four are believed to have died, four were rescued and one escaped, Steed said, so only eight remained. 
 
 “They’re from Baluchistan in Iran,” he said, referring to a violent and restive eastern province. “No one really cares about them.” 
 
 For a graphic on track of suspected hijacked tanker, click here 
 
 For a graphic on attacks by Somali pirates, click here
– Russian commandos rappelled from helicopters to storm a hijacked oil tanker off the coast of Somalia at dawn today, freeing the ship's crew of 23 Russians and capturing the pirates. One pirate was killed in the operation, but there were no other injuries aboard the SS Moscow University, the AP reports. The ship's owner says the decision to strike was made with the knowledge that the crew had locked themselves in a safe room and were not at risk. A Kremlin spokesman praised the "excellent job" done by both the crew and the commandos, noting that the crew had been well prepared for an emergency. A spokesman for Russia's Foreign Ministry told Reuters that the captured pirates will be probably be handed over to regional authorities.