Russian naval chief Ukraine claimed died in missile strike appears at Defence Ministry meeting

The commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Viktor Sokolov, attended a Defence Ministry meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, the ministry reported, undermining Ukrainian claims that he had been killed in a missile strike on Sevastopol on Friday.

Ukrainian special forces claimed on Monday that Sokolov had been among those killed when two cruise missiles struck the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in annexed Crimea.

Russia made no comment on the Ukrainian claim. The Defence Ministry initially said that one service member had died in the Sevastopol attack, but later updated his status unaccounted for.

The Ukrainian military claimed that in total 34 Russian officers had been killed and a further 105 had been injured in Friday’s audacious daytime attack, which it claimed had been planned to coincide with a meeting of senior naval commanders.

A Russian naval officer in Sevastopol, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Novaya-Europe that dozens of service members could have been injured in the strike.