‘Missing’ sailor from Russia’s sunken Moskva flagship receives draft notice
the Russian Moskva missile cruiser (Photo:Handout via REUTERS)
A military registration and enlistment office in the Russian city of St. Petersburg has sent a draft notice to a “missing” sailor from the Russian Moskva missile cruiser, which Ukraine destroyed with missiles in April, the Russian Fontanka media outlet reported on Nov. 8.
Mikhail T. (name changed) was a cook on the cruiser, and went to military service less than a year ago.
His mother has been trying to get any information about her son from the authorities for the past six months, as the Ministry of Defense has not officially declared the sailor dead.
According to Fontanka, Mikhail’s friends who to find out about his fate, and contacted those who survived the cruiser’s sinking. According to them, “some time before the explosion, he went to a warehouse to get food, and no one saw him after that.”
Ukraine’s Armed Forces struck the Moskva missile cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at the time, with two Neptun anti-ship missiles on April 13. The cruiser sank as a result of damages sustained from the missile strike.
Russia initially attempted to downplay the attack, stating that a fire had broken out and the ship was returning to port. However, by the evening of April 14, the Russian Defense Ministry admitted that the Moskva had sunk.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the Moskva had a crew of 510 individuals, and only 58 were rescued.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, families of sailors from the Moskva cruiser are being forced to keep silent about their dead relatives under the threat of non-payment of compensation.
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