Since the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva last Thursday, Ukraine and Russia have been promoting two diametrically opposed accounts of the human toll this has entailed. How does it say that everyone on board the cruiser sank with it, and Moscow asserts that they all survived? Who is telling the truth?

A question asked by the French newspaper Le Parisien, saying that Russia gave the impression the day after the cruiser sank that all its crew had disappeared, by organizing an informal ceremony, at the initiative of the veterans of the Black Sea Fleet, to pay tribute to that cruiser and pay tribute to those on board, and added that the roses The garlands, the pale faces of grief, and the sermon given by an Orthodox priest were sufficient indications that all the sailors had perished.

However, the newspaper reported that the Russian Defense Ministry quickly announced that it had evacuated all the sailors, noting that the ministry had not issued any assessment or any official report on the incident, which many observers interpreted as an indication of an embarrassing outcome.

Russian video and several questions

On the other hand, Le Parisien says that Kyiv's version backed by the Pentagon has not changed one iota since Thursday, which states that the cruiser was hit by two Ukrainian Neptune missiles and "a storm prevented the rescue of the cruiser and the evacuation of the crew," according to Natalia Gominiuk, a spokeswoman for the Southern Command's military command. from Ukraine.

Photo from the memorial service given by veterans of the cruiser and its crew (Reuters)

But at the end of Saturday, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a video showing the Moskva sailors in good condition as if they were unharmed, but Anna Colin Lebedev, a professor and researcher at the University of Paris Nanterre, specializing in post-Soviet societies, believes that this “video raises a lot.” From the questions, because of the number of people who appeared in it, and because of what he did not say,” referring in particular to the specificity of the soundtrack, saying that “the voice in which he announces the number of survivors, dead and wounded is cut off.”

Here, this expert believes that this leaves us with 3 hypotheses. Either the video is true, and this is questionable because of the soundtrack, or the pictures were taken before the cruiser sank, or the whole clip is a play.

The newspaper warned that the silence of the families of the soldiers who were on board the cruiser Moskva was also suspicious, quoting one of the experts in Russia as saying, "We have not seen a single wife or mother speak publicly about the loss of a husband or son, and demand that the Russian government provide explanations for what happened."

Here, the newspaper quotes the former colonel in the French navy, Michel Goya, who was surprised that the bombing, fire and sinking of this large ship did not result in any human loss.

Goya believes that, contrary to what he is promoting, the losses could be large, stressing that the explosion and the fire that followed must have left people dead among the Moskva crew.

As a rule, Goya says, “From the moment the tow of the ship is decided, a decision must be made whether to evacuate or leave the sailors,” and adds, “But to decide on the evacuation, the commander must take into account the possibility of the ship sinking. To what extent did the Russians think He hasn't disclosed this yet, asks Michel Goya, "and if they had waited so long thinking their cruise was out of danger, it might have caused dire consequences," as he puts it.