Like hundreds of other Russian crew members, she had not been told if she had survived the alleged Ukrainian rocket attack that sank the Russian flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. Then, on Monday morning, he received a call from the Russian Ministry of Defense. Her son was dead. “He was only 19 years old, he was a conscript,” said Tsivova, who cried as she spoke on the phone. “I was not told anything else, no information about when the funeral will take place. “I’m sure he is not the only one who died.” Members of the family of sailors who served in Moskva are demanding answers, as the ministry tried to hide information about what happened to the ship or its crew, which numbered 510 people. The total number of dead, wounded and missing remains a state secret. Tsyvov’s death, which has not been reported in the past, is only the second confirmed by the warship. Three other families have made it public that they can not find their sons who served on the ship. Media reports say the death toll from the attack will be much higher, and efforts to suppress reports of the deaths have been compared to the incident with the Kursk submarine that left 118 sailors dead and damaged prestige. of the young president Vladimir Putin. in 2000. “This regime has never been very transparent about the victims,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, pointing to Russian military operations in Ukraine and Syria or investigations into attacks in Beslan and the Dubrovka Theater. “Many of them have a lead and it is not something very new or very strange.” New information about the young sailors who lost their lives will also renew the control over the use of conscripts by the Russian government in battle, something that Putin had explicitly denied was happening at the beginning of the war. The Ministry of Defense was forced to admit that it had deployed conscripts after some were arrested in Ukraine in the first weeks of the war. He claimed he would not use them anymore. However, several parents of Moskva crew members told the Guardian and others that their sons on the ship were indeed conscripts and not professional contract soldiers. “A conscript who should not see active fighting is among those who are missing in action,” wrote Dmitry Skrebets, whose son Yegor was a cook on the ship and is reported missing. “Guys, how can you miss the action in the middle of the open sea? !!!” Photos and a video allegedly showing Moskva shortly before it sank appeared on Monday, almost four days after it sank. The images showed that his lifeboats had been deployed, indicating that he had probably been ordered to leave the ship. Families of many crew members said they were able to locate their family members alive. Eskender Dzheparov said he recognized Akbar’s brother in a video released by the Defense Ministry showing sailors from Moscow meeting a top admiral in Sevastopol after the ship sank. “We were very happy to see him on the crew video in Sevastopol,” Dzheparov said. “The day after the tragedy, he called our mother and said she was alive and well. That she should not worry about him. He has not told us what happened, he does not say much. He calls us from different numbers. He is in the military, he started last July. “He certainly never signed a contract.” A motion picture released by Russia is said to show members of the Moskva crew in Sevastopol on Saturday. Photo: Press Service of the Russian Ministry of Defense / EPA A family member of crew member Evgeny Greenberg told the online messenger that “his condition is good and I do not intend to divulge military secrets”. “It is full of consequences,” wrote Valery Grinburg of Monchegorsk, near Murmansk. “And Eugenios did not say anything anyway.” Asked if he was on board, he wrote “yes” and then deleted the message. Asked how he knew about his relative’s condition, he wrote: “I called the Ministry of Defense.” But many others were less fortunate. Skrebets was one of the first to make public statements about why his son was sent to war. “They said the whole crew was evacuated. It is a lie! A cruel and cynical lie! “ His wife, Irina, told the independent Russian website The Insider that they had seen about 200 injured sailors at a military hospital in Crimea looking for their son. The total crew of Moskva was estimated at just over 500 people. “We looked at every burned child,” he told Insider. “I can not tell you how difficult it was, but I could not find mine. There were only 200 people and over 500 in the cruiser. Where were the others? “We searched in Krasnodar and everywhere else we called everywhere, but we could not find him.” Other families had contacted the Shkrebets hoping to find out more. “We have been contacted by three families from Yalta, Alupka and St. Petersburg, whose children are missing, also conscripts,” her husband wrote on Monday, adding that they had written a request for more information to the local recruitment office. “We need written answers to our questions about finding our children, not text messages with pictures and prayers,” he said. Other parents were clearly more afraid to talk. Ulyana Tarasova from St. Petersburg wrote on the Internet: “My son, Tarasov Mark, is missing during an operation on the cruiser Moskva”. Hours later, her post was gone. Others who spoke to Russian media outlets called for anonymity for fear of retaliation from the government. The mother of another sailor told Novaya Gazeta Europe that three rockets hit Moskva. He said about 40 people had died, many were missing and “there are many injured”.
