A video released by Russia’s ministry of defence purporting to show dozens of uniformed crew members from the missile cruiser Moskva standing in formation, apparently days after the ship sank, did not answer lingering questions about the fate of the vessel and its more than 500 personnel.
The questions reached the point on Saturday where even Vladimir Solovyev, a popular prime-time talk-show host whose pronouncements often reflect the Kremlin line, began asking what went wrong.
Solovyev, describing himself as “outraged” over the sinking, then asked a series of rhetorical questions that picked at both versions of how the Black Sea fleet vessel sank overnight on Wednesday.
If the ship caught fire before sinking, as the Russians claim, then why did it not have a system to extinguish such blazes, the television host wondered aloud. If the ship was sunk by two Ukrainian-made Neptune missiles, as Ukrainian and unidentified US officials have claimed, then why did it lack an anti-missile system?
“Just explain to me how you managed to lose it,” Solovyev asked no one in particular on his Saturday show, Solovyev Live, when he has no guests in the studio.
