Russia suspected of sinking trawler by mistake during Baltic Sea exercise

Officially in Russia, a trawler was the victim of a fire near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on March 19. Three people died and a fourth sailor was seriously injured among the seven crew members of the fishing boat Captain Lobanov. This was announced by the spokesperson for the regional government, Dmitri Lyskov, relayed this Monday by the Russian press agency Tass.

But according to the independent Russian media Dojd based in Latvia, the trawler could have been the victim of a shot carried out by mistake by the Russian navy. Dojd indeed reports the testimony of a relative of one of the crew members who states that the boat was hit by a missile which destroyed the captain's cabin and that Russian intelligence expressly asked the survivors to keep quiet about the incident.

“The crew of the trawler was getting ready to go to bed when a missile hit the bridge. When the rescuers arrived, everyone knew perfectly well that three people were dead and that a missile had been fired. But they decided to say that there had been a 'fire',” the source reported. According to this testimony, the boat sank while the Russian authorities claimed that it had been towed to a safe port. A video was also posted online by the media. In these unauthenticated images, debris is visible at sea next to the boat and the hull appears to be ripped open, suggesting an explosion.

Russian newspapers such as Lenta also reported that the Russian corvette Boikiy had successfully carried out firing exercises in the area on the same day, notably by neutralizing a fictitious enemy submarine with torpedoes dedicated to the fight against underwater or using its anti-aircraft artillery systems. Commissioned in 2013, this Steregushchiy class corvette, mainly dedicated to anti-submarine warfare, also has Uran anti-ship missiles and Redut anti-aircraft missiles.

According to the Tass news agency this time, the governor of the region announced compensation of one million rubles (around 10,000 euros) to the families of the victims and half a million to the injured. Tass also specifies that the trawler had already been the victim of an incident in June 2021. The fishing boat had narrowly missed sinking in the Bay of Kaliningrad, the press agency reported without specifying the nature of the incident.

This incident is reminiscent of the sinking of the trawler Bugaled Breizh off the coast of British Cornwall. If British justice concluded that it was a “fishing accident”, the families of the victims still have the feeling that “reasons of state were opposed to the truth”, explained their lawyer in an interview with Le Figaro. On the day of the tragedy, many submarines were patrolling the area due to military maneuvers or on a stealth mission. One of them could have snagged the cable of the trawl hauled by the ship, dragging it to the bottom.