Putin's flagship "Moskva": soldier's father accuses Kremlin of "cynical lies".
Created: 04/21/2022, 09:33
By: Franziska Schwarz
The now defunct "Moskva" in an archive photo from 2015 © Zhang Jiye/XinHua/dpa
Does the sinking of the Moscow flagship have consequences for Russian President Putin?
Parents of allegedly dead sailors are upset.
Munich - The "Moskva" sank on April 14 in the Black Sea.
A missile cruiser, a Russian prestige object.
Her demise is of symbolic importance, especially in the escalated Ukraine conflict.
The cause?
Vladimir Putin's side speaks of a fire on board, which was aggravated by a storm, Volodymyr Zelenskyy's side of Ukrainian shelling.
This verbal skirmish is of no use to the parents of soldiers believed to have died on board – anger and desperation are evidently growing among the members of the ship's crew.
The British
Guardian
spoke to some of them.
"He was only 19 and a draftee," a mother told the newspaper over the phone.
After the Moskva sank, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow informed her that her son was dead.
Not more.
"Not even when his funeral is."
"Moskva" disaster in the Ukraine war: "A cynical lie"
According to US information, up to 500 crew members were on board.
Moscow said the crew had been evacuated before the boat sank.
"A cruel and cynical lie," wrote Dmitry Shkrebets to the
Guardian
.
His son was a cook on the "Moskva".
"Now a recruit who was not intended for active combat is missing," he laments the disappearance of his son.
"How can you get lost in the middle of the sea?!!!", Shkrebets quoted the paper as saying.
The "Moskva" incident will provoke uncomfortable scrutiny for Putin into how his government treats recruits, the
Guardian
authors believe.
War in Ukraine: US ship expert analyzes "Moskva" images
A spokeswoman for the southern Ukrainian forces, Natalya Humenyuk, meanwhile suspects that Russian lifeboats were unable to get to the burning Moskva due to a storm and were unable to save the sailors.
The weather expert Jörg Kachelmann noted that there was no storm at all at the time, as
Spiegel
noticed.
The magazine is also currently drawing attention to the US shipping expert John Konrad.
He analyzed photos of the "Moskva" that were allegedly taken shortly before she sank and is certain that the vessel was already in a miserable condition.
In the following Konrad's thread:
Putin's warship "Moskva": Captain allegedly left the missile cruiser
Konrad provides his remote diagnosis with the note that it is nothing more than an error-prone remote diagnosis.
Based on the pictures, he assumes that there was actually a fire on the "Moskva" - and suspects that the captain left the ship early.
That doesn't have to contradict Kiev's portrayal.
The Ukrainian side announced that the "Moskva" was hit by two Neptun rockets.
As is so often the case in the Ukraine conflict, none of the information could be independently verified.
(frs)