Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged on Thursday to punish pirates who seize vessels off the Somali coast.
“What is the problem? We are all aware of this evil and cannot agree on how to fight it,” Medvedev told Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.
The statement came after a Russian assault operation freed the Moscow University tanker, hijacked on Wednesday near the Gulf of Aden.
“We will have to act as our forefathers did when they met pirates”, the Russian president said. “Of course, we will fight pirates with the full force of the naval law.”
The president did not specify how exactly the pirates should be punished.