The Russian navy has retaken an oil tanker that had been hijacked by suspected Somali pirates off the coast of Yemen, officials say.
At least one pirate was killed and 10 other captured after marines boarded the MV Moscow University, Russia's state-run RIA news agency reported on Thursday.
A Russian defence ministry official said all 23 crew on board the China-bound tanker, which was seized on Wednesday with $52 million worth of crude oil onboard, were alive and well following the rescue.
The European Union's naval force, which was deployed to protect shipping in the Gulf of Aden, 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," an EU naval statement said.
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.
'Criminal responsibility'
Russian investigators said that the captured 10 pirates would be transferred to Moscow to face charges.
"The investigation is taking steps to transport the captured pirates to Moscow," the investigative committee of Russia's prosecutor general office said in a statement.
It said they would face "criminal responsibility" for the hijacking and the investigation would be conducted in accordance with Russian and international law.
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said recently the presence of numerous foreign warships in the Gulf was proving an effective deterrent, with 17 attacks there in the first quarter of 2010, down from 41 a year earlier.
However, the pirates are still able to seize ships in the busy shipping lanes linking Europe with Asia and have spread their attacks further out to sea in recent months.
Russia has been sending warships to patrol and protect Russian crews and cargo off the Horn of Africa since the hijacking of the Ukrainian-owned cargo ship MV Faina and the death of its Russian captain in 2008.
Some oil tankers have taken to sailing around southern Africa and further east into the Indian Ocean away from Somalia's coastline to avoid the Gulf of Aden.