What remains of the crew of the Moskva, Russian flagship in the Black Sea that kyiv says it sank last week? There are two opposing versions of this question. First of all, that defended by Ukraine, supported by the Pentagon: the cruiser was hit by two Ukrainian Neptune missiles and “a storm prevented the boat from being saved and the crew from being evacuated”, comments made by Natalia Goumenyuk, spokesperson for the military command of the southern region of Ukraine, during a briefing on Friday 16 April. On the Moscow side, the official line is as follows: the Russian Ministry of Defense assures that all the sailors present on the boat have been evacuated.
However, the speech conveyed by the Kremlin appears to contradict an unofficial ceremony, which was held on Friday, April 15, at the initiative of veterans of the Black Sea Fleet. It was intended to pay homage “to the ship and to the sailors” of the Moskva. An event that suggested that there were no survivors.
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“The toll of the human losses on the Moskva’s 480-man crew is unknown, but as with every major building destroyed, they may be considerable. The Russians may have lost in combat in a single day more soldiers than France for 30 years,” military historian Michel Goya tweeted on April 16.
While many experts and Internet users are wondering about the fate of the crew members of the Moskva, the Russian Ministry of Defense is trying to reassure. His authorities released, on Saturday April 17, a video presented as showing a meeting between the chief of the navy and survivors of the cruiser which sank in the Black Sea. In this extract of about thirty seconds, we see a few dozen men in sailor uniforms lined up at attention in front of the chief of the navy Nikolaï Yévménov.
Still, relatives of sailors who served on the Moskva are demanding answers about what happened to the crew. In recent days, several testimonies published by Russian-language media and on social networks have reported missing men, some performing their military service. An individual living in Crimea, Dmitri Chkrebets, posing as the father of a missing person, published a message on the social network Vkontakte on Sunday evening asking why his son, a conscript, was in a combat zone.
“I’m sure he’s not the only one who died”
A woman, Yulia Tsyvova, also told various media that her son was missing. On Monday morning, she received a call from the Russian Defense Ministry. Her son was dead. “He was only 19, he was a conscript,” said Tsyvova, who wept as she spoke on the phone. “They didn’t tell me anything else, no information about the date of the funeral.” I’m sure he’s not the only one who died,” she told the British daily. The Guardian.
“When the Kursk submarine sank with 118 sailors, there was huge outrage in Russia. After the sinking of the Moskva ship, the authorities hide information about the 500 crew members and there is silence in Russia. Putin dragged the whole nation into his bunker,” Ukrainian activist Inna Shevchenko tweeted.
For the moment, the Russian authorities have refused to comment on these testimonies. Neither the navy nor the ministry have drawn up an assessment of the sinking. “All information is provided by the Defense Ministry. We do not have the prerogative to communicate,” said presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The total number of dead, wounded and missing remains a state secret.
In the Kremlin, the subject is all the more sensitive as this flagship played a key role in the coordination of Russian ships in the Black Sea. Moreover, Moscow ensures that the cruiser sank following a fire caused by the explosion of ammunition. A version disputed again by Ukraine, which claims to have sunk it with missiles. The sinking of the Moskva is widely seen as a humiliation for Russia and its fleet, and even pro-Kremlin commentators have demanded an explanation from the authorities, without success so far.
In times of war, the count of victims in each of the camps is often exploited and given to the dropper by the belligerents so as not to reflect an image of weakness. Russia recognized on March 25 1,351 dead in its ranks since the start of the fighting in Ukraine. However, the balance sheet remains unverifiable from an independent source and has not been updated since. Also in March, the Kremlin had indicated that conscripts had mistakenly taken part in the offensive in Ukraine, then had been withdrawn from the theater of operations.