The Russian Ministry of Defence accidentally destroyed a trawler in the Baltic Sea during a naval exercise
At the same time, the authorities of the Kaliningrad region concealed the causes of the incident and the number of victims
The fire on the trawler Kapitan Lobanov, which sank the day before off the coast of the Kaliningrad region, was caused by a missile hit. The missile mistakenly blew up the vessel during a Baltic Fleet exercise, a relative of a crew member said.
Source. This was reported by The Moscow Times.
According to him, three sailors were killed and four others were injured. The crew members were about to go to bed before the missile hit the captain's cabin.
At the same time, the authorities of the Kaliningrad region concealed the causes of the incident and the number of victims. The governor's spokesperson claimed that the fire was caused by an "emergency situation", and that only one person was allegedly killed and two others went missing.
The TV channel's source stressed that "when the survivors were being taken away, everyone knew perfectly well" about the three dead and that it was due to a missile strike, but decided to write that there was a "fire".
"I wonder what kind of fire it was, if the captain's cabin is completely gone – it was simply blown away," he said.
The injured were taken to a hospital in Pionersk, one of them is in serious condition. According to the source, the injured were interrogated at the hospital by FSB officers who ordered them not to "spread the word" about what had happened.
The source added that another missile almost hit an MRTC industrial vessel, which was located near the trawler Kapitan Lobanov, and a shell hit the fishing nets nearby.
Earlier, Dozhd found out, based on open data from the automated tracking system AIS, that the Kapitan Lobanov was in the area of exercises of the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet.
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