Watch: Russia accidentally sinks its own fishing boat with missile
Moscow’s Baltic Sea Fleet accidentally sank a Russian fishing trawler with a missile during training exercises, according to reports.
Footage of the alleged incident posted on social media shows a fishing vessel, painted navy and red, with its hull on fire.
Three people were killed in the strike and four others injured, a relative of one of the dead men claimed on Thursday to TV Rain, an independent Russian TV channel.
The incident reportedly took place on March 19 when the Baltic Sea Fleet, taking part in war exercises in Kaliningrad, launched a live missile that hit Captain Lobanov, a Russian fishing trawler.
Russian authorities claimed that the incident was caused by a fire onboard the ship and said only one person had died, TV Rain reported.
“When the survivors were taken away, everyone knew perfectly well that three people had died and everyone knew perfectly well that a rocket had hit,” the relative told TV Rain.
“But they decided to write that there was a ‘fire’. I wonder what kind of fire this is, if the captain’s cabin is completely gone – it was simply demolished.”
Another missile was caught in fishing nets near the trawler, TV Rain’s source added.
After being taken to a hospital, the survivors were reportedly interrogated by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) officers who asked them “not to talk about the incident”.
Russian state media reports have confirmed that the Baltic Sea Fleet was taking part in exercises when the incident took place.
The Baltic Sea Fleet press service said that during training, the crew of the corvette Boikiy worked on “searching, detecting and destroying a mock enemy submarine using an anti-submarine weapon system”, the Russian state-owned media agency Tass reported.
The corvette also “performed practical firing from artillery systems at sea and air targets” and “practised the actions of striking a detachment of mock enemy ships with the Uran missile system”, the Tass report added.
