500 sailors saved?
Moscow shows video with “Moskva” sailors
04/16/2022, 8:32 p.m
Since the Russian flagship of the Black Sea Fleet “Moskva” sank, there has been disagreement about the fate of the approximately 500 crew members. Now the Russian Ministry of Defense has released a video that is supposed to show the sailors on the ship – but it doesn’t look like 500 men.
After the sinking of the Russian missile cruiser “Moskva” in the Black Sea, the Ministry of Defense in Moscow posted a video, intended to show members of the crew. Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Nikolai Yevmenov met with the sailors in Sevastopol, the agency said. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has its main base in the city on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.
The nearly half-minute clip features dozens of young men in black uniforms. How many there are exactly is difficult to estimate due to the edited sequences. On Twitter, some users said that it could not be the approximately 500 crew members who are said to have been on the “Moskva” at the time of the accident.
Seven weeks after Russia’s war against Ukraine began, the “Moskva” (“Moscow”) was badly damaged on Wednesday and then sank. There is disagreement as to whether the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was hit by Ukrainian “Neptune” missiles or – according to the Russian side – damaged by the detonation of ammunition. According to US information, up to 500 crew members were on board. Moscow said the crew had been evacuated before the boat sank. A spokeswoman for the southern Ukrainian forces, Natalia Humenyuk, said that Russian lifeboats could not get to the burning “Moskva” because of a storm and could not save the sailors.