The captain of the sunken Russian cruiser Moskva, the Black Sea fleet’s flagship, died following an explosion on the warship when it was allegedly struck by two Ukrainian anti-ship projectiles on April 13.
First Rank Capt. Anton Kuprin, 44, allegedly was killed in the subsequent fire aboard the 612-foot vessel, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister adviser Anton Herashchenko and former Russian State Duma lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev.
He “died during an explosion and fire on board the former flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation,” Herashchenko said. “We do not mourn.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed on April 14 that the vessel had sunk while it was being towed, presumably to Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula that Moscow forces have occupied since 2014 when Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of the neighboring country.
No official information is available on the fate of the vessel’s 500-man crew.
Writing on Facebook, Ponomarev said only 58 crew members had been rescued among the 510 on board.
Following the ship’s sinking, Russian media reported that the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Admiral Igor Osipov, was arrested.
Sea storms had prevented more of the crew from being rescued, Ukraine’s spokesperson for the Maritime Guard of the State Border Service said at a briefing on April 15.
Ukraine’s military said the same day that approximately 20,000 Russian military servicemen have been killed since Putin ordered a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24.
Another high-profile Russian combat loss was the alleged killing of Capt. Aleksei Bogolomov, who served in the 25th separate regiment of the military intelligence’s (GRU) special forces.
The telegram channel Ishchi svoikh (Search for your own), an online public database created by Interior Minister adviser Viktor Andrusiv and designed to identify Russian prisoners and killed soldiers, said on April 15 that he was from Stavropol.
“The funeral for GRU agent Bogomolov will reportedly be held in the Tambov region” on April 16, the Evening Standard reported.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reportedly has asked the government to increase funding for troop funerals by 17 percent, the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on April 15.
“Russia currently spends a maximum of 28,178 rubles ($350) for a soldier’s funeral services in Moscow and St. Petersburg and 20,350 rubles ($250) in the rest of the country,” RFE/RL said.
