MOGADISHU, Somalia – A man on a hijacked ship carrying tanks and heavy weapons said Tuesday that the ransom had been reduced to US$8 million (euro5.87 million). It was unclear if he was officially speaking for the pirates holding the vessel.

The man identified himself as Jama Aden and answered the satellite telephone of the pirates' normal spokesman, Sugule Ali. He said in Somali that Ali was not immediately available because he was resting.

“There are high hopes we will release the ship within hours if they pay us US$8 million,” Aden told The Associated Press. “The negotiations with the ship owners are going on well.”

The pirates originally demanded US$20 million (euro14.67 million).

A man who answered the phone at Tomex Team, the ship's operator based in the Black Sea port of Odessa, declined to comment or give his name, saying the matter was being handled by the Ukrainian authorities.

Six U.S. warships are surrounding the Faina, which was hijacked late last month with 21 crew on board. Officials in Moscow say the ship's Russian captain died of a heart condition soon after the hijacking nearly two weeks ago.

A Russian frigate also is headed toward the standoff. The U.S. Navy warships have been tracking the ship amid fears its weapons might fall into the hands of al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in Somalia.

Aden said a small boat was resupplying the Ukrainian vessel with food and qat, a narcotic leaf popular in Somalia.

“The crew is doing well,” he added.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain, declined to say how the Navy is preventing the hijackers from offloading some of the vessel's dangerous cargo.

“Our ships continue to maintain a visual watch ... and we continue to closely monitor the situation,” he said.

The Faina's hijacking, the most high-profile off Somalia this year, illustrates the ability of a handful of pirates from a failed state to menace a key international shipping lane despite the deployment of warships by global powers. More than two dozen ships have been hijacked off Somalia's coast this year.

Somalia's government has given foreign powers the freedom to use force against the pirates, raising the stakes significantly. Russia, whose warship is not expected for several days, has used commando tactics to end several hostage situations on its own soil, but hundreds of hostages have died in those efforts.

Somalia, a nation of around 8 million people, has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 and then turned on each other. A quarter of Somali children die before age 5 and nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.

Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaeda have been battling the government and its Ethiopian allies since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians.

Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Ahmed Jama said the government wants world powers to coordinate their approach to Somalia's violent insecurity.

It is not an issue “that is going to go away. There are a number of dimensions, whether it is pirates, whether it is humanitarian issues, whether it is counterterrorism,” Jama said at a news conference in Kenya's capital.

Associated Press writers Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya and Barbara Surk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.