Sailors’ families search for answers after Russian ship sinks in Black Sea

It took the Russian military over a week to acknowledge that one serviceman died and two dozen others were missing after one of its flagship cruisers sank in the Black Sea.

It took the Russian military over a week to acknowledge that one serviceman died and two dozen others were missing after one of its flagship cruisers sank in the Black Sea, reportedly the result of a Ukrainian missiles strike.

The acknowledgment happened after families started searching desperately for their sons who, they said, served on the ship and did not come home, and relatives are posing sharp questions about Russia’s initial statement that the entire crew was evacuated.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday in a terse announcement that one crew member died and 27 went missing after a fire damaged the flagship Moskva cruiser last week, while 396 others were evacuated. The ministry did not offer any explanation for its earlier claims that the full crew got off the vessel before it sank.

The loss of the Moskva, one of three missile cruisers of its kind in Russia’s fleet, was shrouded in mystery from the moment it was first reported early on April 14. Ukraine said it hit the ship with missiles. The Russian Defense Ministry would not acknowledge an attack, saying only that a fire broke out on the vessel after ammunition detonated, causing serious damage.

Moscow even insisted that the ship remained afloat and was being towed to a port, only to admit hours later that it sank after all – in a storm. No images of the ship, or of the supposed rescue operation, were made available.

Only several days later, the Russian military released a short and mostly silent video showing rows of sailors, supposedly from the Moskva, reporting to their command in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. The footage offered little clarity on how many sailors were actually evacuated to safety.

Soon came the questions. An emotional social media post by Dmitry Shkrebets alleging that his son, a conscript who served as a cook on Moskva, was missing, quickly went viral.

The military “said the entire crew was evacuated. It’s a lie! A blatant and cynical lie!” Shkrebets, a resident of Crimea, wrote on VK, a popular Russian social media platform, on April 17, three days after the ship went down.