“They said the crew was evacuated. It's a cruel, cynical lie!' Relatives despair for the Moskva's missing

For days after the Moskva cruiser sank in the Black Sea, Yulia Tsyvova had been desperately searching for information about her son Andrei.

- Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer

An unverified image of the Russian cruiser Moskva before it sank

Like hundreds of other Russian families of the crew members, she had not been told whether he had survived the reported Ukrainian missile attack that had sunk the Russian flagship of the Black Sea fleet. Then on Monday morning, she received a call from the Russian defence ministry. Her son was dead.

"He was only 19, he was a conscript,” said Tsyvova, who wept as she spoke by telephone. "They didn't tell me anything else, no information on when the funeral would be.

"I am sure he isn't the only one who died." Family members of sailors who served on the Moskva are demanding answers as the ministry has sought to suppress information about what happened to the ship or its crew of about 500.

The number of dead, wounded and missing remains a state secret. Suppression of information about the deaths has raised comparisons with the Kursk submarine incident that left 118 sailors dead and struck a blow to the prestige of president Vladimir Putin in 2000.