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Russian Navy’s ocean research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky to visit Messina on May 21-26

The Admiral Vladimirsky has covered a distance of 38,500 nautical miles of 156 days of its current voyage

MOSCOW, May 20. /TASS/. The Russian Navy’s ocean research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky has entered the Ionian Sea and is heading for the Italian port of Messina, where it will stay from May 21 to 26, Navy spokesman Captain 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said on Sunday.

"Having completed its mission as part of the second international expedition to the Indian Ocean organized under the UNESCO aegis, the ocean research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky is now sailing across the Ionian Sea," the ship’s captain, Alexander Pyshkin, was quoted as saying.

According to Pyshkin, the Admiral Vladimirsky will visit Messina to take part in events in honor of Russian sailors and marines who 110 years ago rendered assistance to the residents of the city struck by an earthquake. On December 28, 1908, Italy’s mainland and the Island of Sicily were hit by a devastating earthquake and a tsunami that killed over 100,000 people.

The Admiral Vladimirsky has covered a distance of 38,500 nautical miles of 156 days of its current voyage. On May 17, it passed through the Suez Canal into the eastern Mediterranean.

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