Russians 1, pirates 0

The BBC has the story:

Russian forces have freed the crew of a Russian oil tanker seized by Somali pirates off the coast of Yemen, in a dramatic rescue operation. Forces on the Russian warship Marshal Shaposhnikov approached the tanker (with 23 Russian crew on board) by helicopter. As they did so, the pirates opened fire, sparking a shoot-out. The Russian forces then abseiled onto the tanker, freeing the crew, who had locked themselves in a safe room after disabling their ship.
Ten pirates have been arrested, and they are currently being held aboard the tanker, Russian defence ministry spokesman Col Alexei Kuznetsov said. They will be transferred to Moscow to face charges. There have been unconfirmed reports that one pirate was killed during the siege.
"Pirates have released the tanker... All crew on board the tanker are alive and well," a spokeswoman for Novoship, the Russian shipping company that owns the tanker, the Moscow University, told Reuters. "During more than twenty hours of siege, the pirates were not able to take a single member of the crew hostage." Novoship praised the operation as one carried out "in the best Russian naval tradition". The decision to free the ship was made knowing "that the crew was under safe cover and inaccessible to the pirates, and that the lives and health of the sailors was not threatened by anything", Novoship added.
Although there are dozens of warships patrolling the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, it is rare for rescue efforts to be launched once pirates have boarded a vessel, as it is often felt that intervening would endanger the hostages. But, in this case, the crew switched off the engine and locked themselves in a strong room with a reinforced door. This tactic of retreating to a 'safe room' has thwarted two previous hijacking attempts on other vessels.
The Moscow University was seized on Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, as it sailed for China, carrying more than 80,000 tonnes of crude oil worth some $50,000,000.
The Gulf of Aden is one of the world busiest shipping routes, and the Russians, Europeans, and Americans have all deployed naval forces in the region after a growing number of attacks by pirates on commercial vessels. Even so, pirates are reported to be holding more than twenty foreign ships with almost four hundred sailors.

Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov (1882–1945), a Red Army officer highly valued by Stalin, served as Chief of the General Staff from 1928 to 1931, from 1937 to 1940, and during the early part of the German–Soviet war. Shaposhnikov was an extremely able and talented staff officer; he drew up the plans for the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland during the Polish campaign and the Red Army's eventual success in the Finnish–Soviet war. In August of 1937, he became deputy to the Defence Commissar, Voroshilov, as well as CGS, but when Voroshilov was removed in May of 1940, so was Shaposhnikov, though the same month he was promoted marshal of the Soviet Union. He left his post as CGS in August of 1940 to take charge of the new Stalin Line which was being constructed on the Soviet Union's new borders. After the German invasion in June of 1941, he again became CGS and a member of the Stavka. But his health declined and, in May of 1942, he was replaced by Vasilevsky and again became Deputy Defence Commissar. In June of 1943, he was appointed to head the Voroshilov Higher Military Academy, a post he held until his death.