warship
After the sinking of the “Moskva”: Russia shows video with alleged crew
The “Moskva”, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, sank on Thursday
© Max Delaney / AFP
Many questions about the sinking of the “Moskva” in the Black Sea are still open, including the whereabouts of the crew. Now the Russian Ministry of Defense has released a video that is supposed to show the crew.
Two days after the sinking of the “Moskva”, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a video that is said to show the warship’s crew. In the 38-second clip, several dozen men in naval uniforms can be seen lined up in front of Russian Navy Chief Nikolai Yemenov. The meeting is said to have taken place in Sevastopol on the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Sevastopol is the main base of the Black Sea Fleet.
The pictures are the first of the crew since the ship went down last Thursday. Whether these are really marines of the ship cannot be checked. The cruiser can accommodate a crew of over 500 men.
Many open questions in the case of “Moskva”
After the sinking, Ukraine claimed that the crew could not be saved. This too cannot be verified independently. On Twitter, many users questioned the topicality of the video. Trees in full bloom and foliage can be seen in the background.
Ukraine and Russia are arguing about what led to the sinking. According to Ukrainian sources, the flagship was hit by two Ukrainian Neptun missiles and badly damaged. The guided missile cruiser later sank. The US Department of Defense confirmed the Ukrainian version on Friday. Russia insists there was an accident on board which resulted in a munitions explosion. The crew had been evacuated and the ship later went down in a storm. There are serious doubts about the Russian version, even Russian state propaganda stumbled on the subject (read more about this here).
The German meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann pointed out on Twitter that there was no storm on the Black Sea at the time of the sinking. As a result, Russia had increasingly carried out airstrikes on armaments companies. Among other things, the Neptun plant was destroyed, the same rocket manufacturer who is said to be responsible for the sinking of the “Moskva”.