"All Commanders Escaped. Conscripts Remained There?"

• 20.04.2022, 9:39

Story by the mother of a missing sailor from the Moskva cruiser.

The name of another conscript from the cruiser Moskva, which sank in the Black Sea in mid-April, has become known. Sergei Grudinin is 21 years old, lives in Blagoveshchensk (the Amur region), which is about 9 thousand kilometres from the border with Ukraine. His parents have been informed that Sergei is missing. Current Time correspondent Timofei Rozhansky spoke to the sailor's mother, Tamara Grudinina.

"We sent a text message with our son's data, we received a reply: 'Your son is missing, I'm sorry". Then he called us, Vakula (Pavel Vakula, deputy commander of the ship - NV). He said that our son had stayed on the ship. I asked: "How did it come? We entrusted you with our son. How could you do this?" He said, "It's my fault. He's not alone, there are many of them".

Then our Seryozha's commander called. He said that when the whole thing started... fire on the ship, he was like evacuating them, my Seryozha was standing in a line. The line broke, and Seryozha and a few other guys stayed there. He could not evacuate them.

I said: "How did it come that all the commanders survived, but the conscripts remained there? - "Well, it happened." "Is there any hope the boys could have survived?" - "Well, there is. 80%". Then he said: 99%. Somehow he wriggled. They talk to us, you know, as if 'why are you making such a big deal out of this?" - says Tamara Grudinina.

"The Ministry of Defence calls us and says: 'Everything is fine. Your son is alive and healthy". I call from the first day, today is the sixth or seventh day, I call the hotline at 10 o'clock, Moscow time. They update the lists all the time. They tell me: "He is alive, feels fine. He will call as soon as possible," she continues.

Sergei, like his fellow conscripts whose parents have already been interviewed by Current Time, was not going to sign a contract either.

"The last time I called him on 10 April. I told him: "The contract, no way!" He wanted to go home very much. He didn't sign any contract, that's 100%. And he didn't say anything about the war. "Everything's fine." He always used to reassure us: "Mum, it's OK, I'll come home". Did I know that he went to war after his service? You know, no," the woman says.

Tamara believed that Sergei would not take part in the "special operation" in Ukraine and therefore did not demand to return him from the ship to the port: "Exactly, I did not try. They said the Moskva was not involved in military operations. That it is such a protected ship. All the media wrote that conscripts weren't taking part. So I didn't try. If only I knew. I don't know who's right and who's wrong. It's bad either way, war. Or a special operation. What's going on out there. I do not know, I honestly tell you.

Sergei Grudinin is the sixth crew member of the cruiser Moskva, who has been reported missing and whose identity has been established. According to Meduza, 37 crew members of the sunken ship were killed, about 100 were injured, while the number of those missing is unknown.

On 13 April, there was a fire on the Moskva cruiser. The Ukrainian authorities said they had attacked the ship with Neptun missiles.