Russian Missile Hits Own Trawler Captain Lobanov in Baltic Sea

The fishing trawler Captain Lobanov was hit by a missile from the Russian Baltic Fleet.

The Russian online TV Rain reported on this, citing relatives of one of the crew members.

The TV reported that the incident occurred on March 19, 2024, when three crew members were killed on the trawler and four others were injured.

The missile that hit the trawler was fired during a Baltic Fleet exercise. Before the incident, the crew members of Captain Lobanov were about to go to bed when the missile hit the captain’s cabin.

Local authorities in the Kaliningrad Oblast stated there was a fire on board the trawler, and the cause of the incident is still unknown. The authorities reported only one death.

“When they were taking away the survivors, everyone knew perfectly well that three people had been killed. And everyone knew perfectly well that a missile had hit. But they decided to write that there was a ‘fire’. I wonder what kind of fire it was, if the captain’s cabin was completely gone, it was simply blown away,” the source told TV Rain.

The survivors were taken to a hospital in the city of Pionersky, with one of the victims reported to be in serious condition.

The TV Rain reports that the victims were interrogated in the hospital by officers of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, who asked the crew members not to disseminate information about the incident.

Another missile, according to the TV Rain’s source, fell into fishing nets near the MRTC industrial vessel, which was located near the trawler Capitan Lobanov.

Russian media reported that during the March 19 exercises, the Russian corvette Boikiy conducted practical firing from onboard artillery weapons.

After the firing was completed, the crew practiced striking the ships of a simulated enemy with Kh-35 anti-ship missiles of the Uran missile system with electronic launches.

Militarnyi previously reported that Admiral Yevmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, has been dismissed.

Citing their own sources, the journalists reported that the commander of the Northern Fleet, Alexandr Moiseev, was appointed as an interim acting Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy.