Two Fesco crew have died in "strange circumstances" on an icebreaking cargoship en route to South Africa.
The 10,700-dwt diesel-electric vessel Vasiliy Golovnin (built 1988) was returning from a three-month mission to Antarctica.
A trade union representative in Primorsky Krai told the RIA Novosti agency that two men, born in 1988 and 1972, had died during the voyage to Cape Town on 25 April.
The cause of death has not yet been established.
One Russian report linked it to methanol poisoning.
Fesco is not commenting until an investigation is complete.
"People died under strange circumstances," the union representative said.
The vessel had left for Antarctica on 26 January, supplying an Indian research station.
