Somali Pirates from Baku

Somali Pirates and from Baku? A joke? Absolutely not! According to the U.S. Naval Institute blog citing Fairplay Shipping News which in turn quotes a retired Soviet rare-admiral Sergey Bliznyuk's interview to Gazeta Po-Kiyevski, some of Somali pirates actually could be trained by Soviet naval schools, including one in Baku:

A RETIRED rear admiral of the Soviet navy reportedly admitted today that some Somali pirates had been trained at USSR naval academies. Sergey Bliznyuk told the Ukrainian newspaper Gazeta Po-Kievskiy that he had personally come across some men he now believes are behind many hijackings.

“There are many former military men among the Somalis who have perfected the tactics of sea combat,” he said. “The majority of these 40-50-year-olds were trained in the former Soviet Union. “I myself taught at one point at a school in Baku [Azerbaijan], where we had 70-80 Somalis a year studying.”

Bliznyuk told the newspaper that Soviet officers had trained naval personnel from the government of President Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia in 1969-91 after a military coup.