April 15 (Reuters) – Dozens of people gathered on Friday in Sevastopol, Crime, for a ceremony to remember the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which sank on Thursday after being rocked by heavy explosions, blamed on by Moscow a fire and by the Ukraine missiles.
The cruiser Moskva was a “symbol of power, hope and rebirth of our fleet” after the fall of the Soviet Union, said Captain Sergue Gorbachev, addressing the crowd gathered in front of a monument erected in honor from the founding of the Russian Navy in 1696 Sbastopol.
The large city of Crime, annexed by Russia in 2014, was the home port of the missile ship, which had participated in all recent Russian military campaigns, in Georgia in 2008, in Syria and in Ukraine.
An American official said on Friday that Washington was convinced that the cruiser had indeed been hit by Ukrainian Neptune missiles before sinking in rough seas.
“There will be victories, there will be tragedies, but the memory lives on,” added Captain Gorbachev to a silent crowd, including former crew members.
“The loss of a ship, especially a flagship, is a tragedy for all those tens of thousands of people who served on board for more than 20 years,” said Georgi Ployakov, an Orthodox priest who took part in the ceremony. .
The Moskva is the second Russian warship destroyed since the beginning of what Moscow presents as a “special operation” in Ukraine. (Rig by Conor Humphries Dublin, French version Tangi Salan)