KEY POINTS

  • Shkrebets shared his fears on Russian social media platform VKontakte 
  • He said there was total silence on Moskva's sinking and the fate of its crew
  • Shkrebets's son Yegor was a cook aboard Moskva when it was attacked

The father of a missing Moskva soldier has come under the radar of Russia's security services, whose officials confiscated his laptop. Dmitry Shkrebets, the father of missing conscript soldier Yegor Shkrebets, said he fears the Russian government will try to plant information on his computer to accuse him of terrorism.

Shkrebets took to the Russian social media platform VKontakte to allege that "people from a serious department" came to him and took his laptop "for examination."

"Apparently, it seemed to someone that the tragic death of my son did not shock me enough, not enough grief, not enough trouble," he wrote on VKontakte. "Someone wanted to turn me into "scumbag" terrorist."

The Russian officials reportedly told the mourning father that messages were sent via foreign e-mail to some organizations with bomb threats on his behalf. These messages came from a computer with a hidden IP.

"They definitely can’t find anything there because there’s nothing there. You cannot find a black cat in a dark room, especially if it is not there," Skhrebets told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL.

He alleged that there was "absolute silence" regarding Moskva since the day it sank. "I can't understand why everyone is silent. We've lost our flagship, we've lost our people - and it's like nothing happened! This stupid silence discourages me," he added.

Skhrebets said that he will not be silent and "will continue to conduct some kind of activity in this direction." "I am amazed! How is it possible if we have a free society and a free country? Why don't we discuss this? Why there are no platforms to talk about what happened and why it happened. What is going on? How could we lose the flagship? This stupidity and stupidity discourage me. I can't understand why," he added.

Shkrebets' son Yegor was a cook aboard the guided-missile cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea when it sank. Three days after the Moskva sank, the Russian Defense Ministry released a video showing the parade of surviving crewmen from the guided-missile cruiser.

Earlier, Shkrebets revealed how Russia declared his son's status as "missing in a military unit." He also published a letter from the Russian Prosecutor's Office, which reportedly stated that the "ship itself was not included in the list of military formations and units involved in a special military operation."

Russia says one crew member died and 27 were missing after the Moskva missile cruiser (pictured in 2015) sank last week, in its first admission of losses on the ship
Russia says one crew member died and 27 were missing after the Moskva missile cruiser (pictured in 2015) sank last week, in its first admission of losses on the ship AFP / Max DELANY
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