‘I will give my whole life for the truth to prevail’: Dmytro Shkrebets, father of missing Moskva sailor Yegor, takes the initiative and becomes spokesman for the families of the crew members of the sunken Russian missile cruiser Black Sea The Russians deny that there have been deaths, but relatives are now openly talking about dozens of victims in this tragedy, which is increasingly resembling that of the Kursk submarine, which 22 years ago unleashed a wave of outrage and protests that Vladimir Putin directly little rose into the presidency. The causes of the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, remain mysterious. Not even a photo and threesecond video circulating online showing the ship lying on its side while a thick column of black smoke billows from the stern allow us to assess whether it is Ukraine who is telling the truth when they claim it is hit the unit with Neptune missiles, or Russia when it says the Moskva went down because of the explosion of its ammunition depot during a storm. The only thing that is clear as long as the pictures are authentic is that there is no sign of bad weather.
Ukraine, which sank the Russian flagship Moskva
by Gianluca Di Feo April 18, 2022
Moscow has not spoken about victims, but testimonies of people posing as relatives of the dead or missing are circulating on the Internet. The Guardian writes that Yulia Tsyvova, the mother of a 19yearold conscript, received the news of her son Andrei’s death directly from the Defense Ministry. Varvara Vakhrusheva, wife of Ensign Iva Vakhrushev, 41, announces the death of her husband and writes on a social network that he died a “hero doing his duty”. The death toll would be 40 dead and many injured, according to a woman who posed as the mother of a surviving seafarer but did not give her name, quoted by Novaya Gazeta Europe.
Dmytro Shkrebet’s reaction is emblematic of the contradictions in Russian society. On the one hand, the man supports what the authorities call “the special military operation” and declares that “Ukraine should not exist”. But on the other hand, he makes himself heard. “I asked straight out why you officers are alive and my son, who was just drafted, is dead?” the man says, quoted by independent site Meduza. The reaction is reminiscent of the relatives of the 118 crew members of the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000, whom Putin met at the Vidyayevo naval base ten days after the tragedy. Seafarers’ mothers and wives shouted out their anger at the president, who had been elected for the first time just five months earlier, protesting the delays in the rescue and the lack of explanations. But it was not the first dark tragedy in the history of the Russian Navy. In 1961, a Soviet submarine K19 suffered a reactor failure and fatal radiation hit several crew members. Moscow hid the tragedy for nearly 30 years before it became public and even inspired the 2002 film The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford.