Thick black smoke rises from the central castle.
The vessel leans to port under the effect of the list.
Or is it the shot of the Ukrainian strike?
The first images of the sinking of the cruiser
Moskva
which have been circulating on social networks since Sunday evening, give only meager clues as to what really happened on April 14 in the Black Sea.
Only one thing is certain: the ship is indeed lying at the bottom of the sea.
For the rest, who sank it?
What becomes of the crew?
The mystery remains.
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The authenticity of the pictures, according to observers, leaves little doubt.
We see the ship heavily damaged, but men on board, no trace.
"
The photos were taken when the boat had already been abandoned to its fate
", analyzes Thibault Lamidel, specialist in naval matters.
A short video, barely a few seconds long, and shot as if the hand behind the camera wanted to be discreet, seems to confirm that its author "
was not really authorized to take images
", notes the expert interviewed by
Le
Figaro .
The Ukrainian version corroborated
Although meager, what do the elements taken from the photographs say?
"
The disaster visibly affected the central superstructure, and perhaps even the command structures, which can barely be seen behind the smoke
", describes Thibaut Lamidel.
Two jets of water are visible, trying to extinguish the flames.
According to various observers, they would come from a Russian sea tug hidden behind the vessel, "
the Sliva-class SB-922 rescuer
", specifies the blogger Little think tank.
“
This overlaps with the presence of five Russian rescue vessels in the vicinity at the time of the events
“, explains Thibault Lamidel.
According to the specialist, the fight against the disaster would have started around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., before being abandoned to proceed with the evacuation of the crew.
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Figaro
However, nothing in the images refutes Moscow's thesis, that of an explosion of ammunition forcing the crew to abandon ship.
But if two RK-630MTS “
Neptun
” subsonic anti-ship missiles did hit the ship, as Kiev claims, the visible traces at and below the waterline seem to corroborate it.
Impacts “
precisely where most anti-ship cruise missiles are supposed to hit
”, notes blogger Tyler Rogoway on his specialized site The war zone.
probable victims
What about sailors?
There too, the versions are opposed.
For Kiev, there is no doubt that the sailors sank with the ship to the bottom of the sea, since "
a storm prevented the ship from being saved and the crew from being evacuated
", said a military source, acknowledging however that he could not give any details "
lack of reliable data
".
For its part, Moscow claims that the crew, which is between 485 and 510 sailors for a flagship of this nature, was "
evacuated to other ships of the Black Sea Fleet in the vicinity
", and would be safe and sound in Sevastopol.
On the basis of the photographs, a certain number of victims is however highly probable, estimates Thibault Lamidel.
“
The affected part corresponds to the energy control station, which supplies electricity to the whole boat
,” he explains to
Le Figaro
.
If there was a hit, the missiles inevitably hit the propulsion specialists located at this key position.
"
Unless the alert was given in time, which is not excluded
", however specifies the analyst.
"
It all depends on how much the accident surprised the crew
."
"
List of the missing
"
Another echo also shakes the official Russian version.
This is the testimony of a sailor's father, broadcast on VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, and taken up by the Russian media Meduza.
The Russian warns about the fate of his son, embarked as a cook on the
Moskva
, and who would appear on a "
list
of the missing
".
“
Guys, please spread this information
”, begs the father in a post deleted for the first time, then reposted.
The Russian Defense Minister released a video on Saturday showing
Moskva
sailors in uniform and in a row, greeted by an officer, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov.
“
Blatant and cynical lie!
exclaims the sailor's father.
On the video, only a hundred sailors appear.
Why would the others be missing?
Are they injured?
Disappeared?
Doesn't the video date from before the sinking?
The ship's captain, Anton Kuprin, reported as killed in the blast on social media, "
closely matches
" one of the characters featured in the video, maritime intelligence expert HI Sutton notes on his blog.
On the Russian social network, the father claims to have been contacted by several other sailor families.
And enjoins "
those who are not afraid
" to spread his call, "
so that the bastards do not 'suffocate' this terrible tragedy
".
"
This confirms a widespread trend in the Russian armies: the lack of transparency on human losses
", deciphers researcher Anna Colin Lebedev.
For the Russia specialist, the story of the
Moskva is reminiscent of that of the
Kursk
submarine
, victim of a double explosion when Vladimir Putin was newly elected head of the Russian Federation.
A mystery remained the object of all fantasies, for lack of institutional communication.
“
Anyway, all assumptions are inconvenient for Moscow.
Whether it was an attack by Ukrainian missiles, or a fire spontaneously appearing on the ship, that does not say much about the military capabilities of this ship, or of the Russian fleet in general
”.
