Ukrainian forces strike claims 74 Russian sailors' lives. Russian authorities finally admit
6:08 AM EST, December 30, 2023
The assault occurred on the morning of Tuesday, December 26. The ship, part of the Black Sea Fleet, was anchored in Theodosia on the coastline of the Crimean Peninsula. The Russians initially reported two casualties, but they later retracted their comments about fatalities, only mentioning 33 sailors as "missing".
On Friday, Russian media sources like the "Novosti Sevastopol" portal reported that there were 74 deaths as a result of the attack. However, these posts were abruptly removed.
Admiral concedes that 74 crew members died
Members of the Cybernetics Department at the National Resistance Center infiltrated the email account of a Russian state television propagandist. Here, they discovered a scanned letter from Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the commander of the Russian Federation Navy.
The letter, dated Friday and addressed to the head of the administration of the city of Novocherkassk, which is in the Rostov region in southern Russia, revealed that, indeed, 74 crew members had lost their lives, with an additional 27 being injured. The city of Novocherkassk, home to about 170,000 residents, is the namesake of the ill-fated ship.
The Admiral suggested in the letter that two days of mourning be observed in Novocherkassk. Posts that had been removed from Russian news portals indicated that two days of mourning was announced in Theodosia, where the Novocherkassk ship had been docked.
