Russia Slams Reports of Trawler Sinking on Striking Submarine
The Russian Defense Ministry has rejected the media reports that the Russian trawler tragedy in the Sea of Okhotsk that claimed 56 lives was due to a collision with a submarine, informs the state news agency TASS.
Russian media quoted the spokesman for the Russian Navy, Gen. Igor Konashenkov, as saying that information disseminated by individual news agencies and social networks regarding the reason for the shipwreck of the large trawler, the Dalniy Vostok, “is bogus.”
"All the information spread by some mass media and social networks that the cause of the shipwreck in the Sea of Okhotsk of a big autonomy trawler Dalniy Vostok could have been a collision with a Russian submarine is false," Konashenkov said.
He said that there were “no Russian Naval submarines in that particular area of the Sea of Okhotsk at the time of the tragedy.”
The 'Dalniy Vostok' freezer trawler capsized in the Sea of Okhotsk 330 km west of Krutogorovsky settlement in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka peninsula and 250 km south of the city of Magadan on Thursday.
It sank in freezing water with 132 people on board, including 81 Russians and 51 foreigners. At least 56 died in the accident, while 13 remain missing.
The trawler was owned by Magellan LLC and its home port is Nevelsk in the Sakhalin region.