A memorial to Russian sailors killed during the war in Ukraine appears to show that 19 sailors were killed in the sinking of the Moskva battleship, according to photos shared by pro-war bloggers and analyzed by independent media.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has confirmed one death and 27 missing sailors in the April 13, 2022, sinking of the Moskva guided missile cruiser after it was reportedly struck by a Ukrainian missile. At least 17 of the missing crew were later declared dead by a court in Sevastopol, annexed Crimea.
Dmitry Shkrebets, the father of one of the conscripts declared missing after the Moskva’s sinking, disclosed that a memorial to the ship’s crew was unveiled Sunday at the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol.
According to photos published after the unveiling and analyzed by the investigative news website IStories, the memorial displays 19 sailors’ names with April 13, 2022, written as the date of their deaths. Two other sailors named on the memorial reportedly had different dates of death.
Eleven of the perished sailors were born in 2000 or later, IStories said.
The photos were first published this week by the pro-war Telegram channel Rusfleet, which covers the naval front of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Shkrebets claimed that some of the sailors’ relatives, the Moskva’s surviving crew members and its captain had not been invited to the memorial’s unveiling.
Moscow denies that its battleship was sunk by a Ukrainian missile, instead blaming the incident on an accidental on-board munitions explosion.