Sevastopol court declares 17 sailors from Moskva cruiser dead

A court in Crimea’s Sevastopol has declared 17 sailors from Russia’s sunken Moskva cruiser dead, Agentstvo cites the court. Information on all 17 cases is available at the court’s catalogue.

Those are cases of “declaring citizens missing or declaring citizens deceased.” For instance, the court’s catalogue has a case where Dmitry Skhrebets, the father of Yegor Shkrebets, the conscript who lost his life at the Moskva cruiser, is listed as the complainant, as well as cases with other relatives of the deceased conscripts in the same role, namely Vitaly Begersky, Ivan Frantin and Leonid Savin. There are links to all entries of the court's catalogue in the Russian-language version of this piece.

The complainants in these cases are the commander of military unit 42948, the one Moskva was assigned to, as well as the parents of the deceased servicemen.

According to Agentstvo, 16 cases were considered between June and August, and one more in September. In 12 cases, the decision has already taken legal effect.

Dmitry Shkrebets has confirmed to Agentstvo that his son was declared dead. “Closed trials were held on the application of parents regarding the recognition of the missing sons as dead. All other missing sailors whose parents did not apply to the court are automatically declared dead after 6 months, ”he said.

The Ukrainian authorities reported hitting the Russian Moskva cruiser in the Black Sea with Neptun missiles on 13 April. The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the explosion shortly afterwards, but reported that the cruiser was damaged by ‘detonation of weapons’ that occurred due to a fire, all sailors were evacuated, and the ship ‘remained floating.’ The next day, the ministry announced that the cruiser had sank in a storm while being towed away from the location.

According to the official theory of Russia’s Defence Ministry, one crew member of Moskva lost his life, another 27 were declared missing. It was also reported that the relatives of at least five conscripts were given death certificates.