New images suggest the captain of the Russian flagship may have abandoned it too early. Photo / Twitter
New images suggest the captain of the Russian flagship may have abandoned it too early. Photo / Twitter
The captain of Moskva, Russia's sunk Black Sea Fleet flagship, may have abandoned it too early, experts have suggested, after new images of the stricken vessel emerged on Monday.
Hundreds of crew members are believed to remain unaccounted for after the ship was reportedly hit by Ukrainian missiles before sinking in the Black Sea last Thursday.
Russia has insisted that the damage to the ship was caused by an explosion of ammunition in an unexplained fire, which led it to sink while being towed in choppy seas.
New images and footage circulating online, which have not been officially verified, appears to show the Moskva on fire and apparently abandoned. Analysts have said that the damage visible to the hull contradicts Russia's version of events.
New images suggest the captain of the Russian flagship may have abandoned it too early. Photo / Twitter
A thick column of black smoke can be seen rising from a charred and burning section of the Moskva, which is listing to port and has had its lifeboats deployed. Water hoses can also be seen spraying in the air, potentially from a nearby salvage vessel.
The continued buoyancy of the ship coupled with the absence of any of its 510 crew members on the upper decks potentially suggests that the captain may have left the ship too early.
Tom Sharpe, a retired commander in the Royal Navy who once helped save the UK's ice patrol vessel during a flood, told the Telegraph that the ship appeared to have been abandoned too soon.
He said: "You will always see a team, normally on the flight deck. In this case, the flight deck would be a good place to gather your equipment and firefighting teams. You want to set up safe zones and that's where you put all your firefighting equipment and all your people, so they're in fresh air.
Russian missile cruiser Moskva on patrol in the Mediterranean Sea near the Syrian coast on December 17, 2015. Photo / via AP
"But there's nobody there and if there is no one, there is almost no chance of anyone being alive below deck. It also suggests that everyone is off that ship."
John Konrad, an author who has captained civilian ships, wrote an analysis of the images which concluded that his "best guess" was that "the captain of the Moskva abandoned his ship too early".
He pointed out that the flagship was crucial to the Russian war effort and that normally, the captain would be expected to stay on board to try to save the ship.
In this case, the ship appeared to have been abandoned despite the "calm weather, reserve buoyancy" and "the fact the helideck was smoke-free", Konrad wrote.
Sharpe, however, said that there was too much uncertainty around the images to make this assertion with any certainty.
"You could just be unlucky.
"You could take a massive detonation on another munition by the incoming missile and that rips out all your command and control, all your communications, all your systems and then you're done. At that point, you might as well get off, because there is nothing any of you can do."
He added, however, that the new images appeared to undermine Russia's own account of how the Moskva met its fate.
"There are holes in the side of the ship that clearly look like missile entry points," Sharpe suggested.
Referring to the Russian response, he said: "Then they were talking about a storm and if you're trying to do tow with a badly damaged ship, it will make things a lot worse, but it's not stormy. It's flat and calm. I think this goes some way to disproving that allegation."
Footage released by Russia's defence ministry over the Easter weekend showed the ship's crew back at their home base. However, the crew appeared to be at least one-half of the 510 members believed to have been onboard.
It is also unclear when the footage was taken, raising the possibility that it may have been captured before the Moskva was attacked.
The damage to the Russian flagship appears to have mostly been done to the amidships part of the cruiser, far away from some of the boat's main ordinances.
The smoke billowing from portholes and the open helicopter hangar suggest significant internal fire damage, perhaps indicating possible loss of life.
It is not clear whether the helicopter had a chance to be deployed before the crew were either killed or evacuated.
