Updated 07.05: Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, stated that Ukraine did not attack the Russian ship Admiral Makarov. He called the information about the attack on the ship a «misunderstanding» and admitted that the Russian side could have spread it to discredit the Ukrainian and Western media.
The Odessa publication Dumskaya reports a Russian frigate caught fire off Snake Island. According to preliminary data, the ship was hit by a Ukrainian Neptun missile.
«Information about the explosion on board the ship appeared on social media yesterday evening. Today, however, we received confirmation that such an incident did occur,» the report says.
People's deputy Alexei Goncharenko claims the frigate Admiral Makarov is on fire:
«God of the seas has taken revenge on Russian assailants. The Admiral Makarov frigate was laid down in February 2012 at the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad and was launched in September 2015. And in 2022, when it took part in the murder of Ukrainians, it was punished by the God of the Seas. It has not yet followed the Moskva, but still it's a good start.»
Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov says the Kremlin is unaware of the alleged missile strike on the Russian frigate.
On April 13, the Ukrainian side said the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, had been hit by Neptun missiles. On April 14, the Russian Defense Ministry said the Moskva was destroyed. Shortly before that, the Defense Ministry said that ammunition on the cruiser «detonated,» as a result of which a fire broke out.
Initially, the Defense Ministry reported that the entire crew of the cruiser had been «evacuated in a timely manner,» but a few days later messages about «missing» sailors from the Moskva began surfacing on social media. Among the missing sailors were conscripts. At this time, the names of two dead and eight missing sailors are known. Nine of them were conscripted in 2021. For its part, the Defense Ministry acknowledged only one death and reported 27 servicemen missing.
According to Agentstvo, conscripts may have accounted for two-thirds of the cruiser's crew. According to rough estimates, there may have been 300 conscripts on the cruiser. However, from the very beginning of the war the Russian side denied any use of conscripts in the «special military operation.» On March 9, the Defense Ministry admitted it for the first time, stating that some of the conscripts had been taken prisoner.