President Dmitry Medvedev tasked Russia's navy Wednesday to join the search for a cargo ship that has mysteriously disappeared from radars and is feared to have fallen prey to pirates in European waters. Medvedev ordered the defence ministry 'to take all necessary measures to find and free' the missing vessel and its Russian crew, a Kremlin spokesman was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying. In addition to patrol ships, Russian radar systems, including space based-ones, are now searching for the ship, a defence ministry spokesman told the Interfax news agency. The Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea was last contacted in the English Channel and could have been under control of pirates at the time, the British coastguard said Tuesday. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said that if confirmed, it would be the first time in living memory that pirates had operated in European waters. Coastguard operators spoke to the Russian crew aboard the Arctic Sea, which is carrying 6,700 cubic metres of sawn timber, on July 29 as the ship passed through the Dover Strait, apparently on its way to the Algerian port of Bejaia. Officials had no suspicions at the time but that was the last that was heard of the ship. The agency subsequently discovered that the Arctic Sea had been boarded by masked men in Swedish waters five days earlier. MCA spokesman Mark Clark told selfnews that the subsequent disappearance suggested the ship, sailing under a Maltese flag, was still in the hands of the pirates when it passed through British waters. 