MOSCOW, April 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Dozens of people gathered in the Crimean city of Sevastopol to mourn the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, a symbol, the crowd heard, of hope, revival and power until its demise.
Some embraced and others laid flowers in memory of the Moskva missile cruiser at a monument to the 1696 foundation of the Russian navy in the centre of Sevastopol, headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.
Moscow, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, said that the ship sank while being towed in stormy seas after a fire caused by an ammunition explosion.
Ukraine said that one of its missiles had caused it to sink.
“Even for those who have not been on it, the Moskva was a symbol for everyone, a symbol of our power, of our hope, of the revival of the fleet in the 1990s” following the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Reserve Captain Sergei Gorbachev, who spoke to the crowd in his naval uniform.
“There will be victories, there will be tragedies, but the memory remains,” Gorbachev said.
The crowd, which included a number of people who served on the ship, stood in respectful silence. Some wore the ribbon of St George, a symbol of the Russian military.
“The loss of every ship, especially a flagship, is a tragedy for all those tens of thousands of people who served there for over 20 years,” said priest Georgiy Ployakov.
Russia sent tens of thousands of soldiers into Ukraine on Feb 24 on what it calls a “special operation”.
Meanwhile in KYIV, a stamp depicting a Ukrainian soldier making an obscene hand gesture at the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva has become a collector’s item for Ukrainians who see it as a sign of “victory”.
At the central post office in the capital Kyiv, hundreds of Ukrainians of every age could be seen queueing for hours on Friday to get their hands on one of the 1 million copies printed so far.
“That ship was the biggest one they had … They gambled a lot on it and we destroyed it!” said Yury Kolesan, 22, who waited for two-and-a-half hours to get a set of 30 stamps.
“It’s a new phase of the war, one of victory!”
The missile cruiser gained notoriety in the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when its crew called on a unit of Ukrainian border guards to surrender, only for them to defiantly refuse.
The incident quickly became a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s assault.
Ukraine’s postal service last month launched a competition to illustrate the episode.
Out of more than 500 submissions, Lviv designer Boris Groh’s winning entry shows a Ukrainian soldier from behind swearing at the warship.
It has proved a hit, selling out in many post offices and quickly appearing for resale online. — NNN-AGENCIES
