Warships in your direction, says a man in a recording that the news agency AP has obtained.
I'm driving. I'm not under control.
The man sounds the alarm that his ship – the Russian reconnaissance ship Kildin – has got into trouble off the coast of Syria. He urges other ships to keep away.
Images and video clips from military NATO sources show flames and smoke rising from Kildin. The recording of the commander's cry is said to have been picked up by a NATO country's ship that was in the vicinity. The crew on board the ship is reported to have offered to help, but to no avail.
This happened on January 23 and the fire raged for about four hours, according to AP's source. The crew hoisted black signal balls to indicate that they were adrift and uncovered the lifeboats, which were not lowered into the water.
Kildin is a 73-meter-long signals reconnaissance ship that was built over 55 years ago. Russia's fleet is believed to have major logistical problems when operating in the Mediterranean, as it is not allowed to pass through the Bosphorus to the nearest Russian port in the Black Sea.
The Russian government's spokesperson, Dmitrij Peskov, has been asked about the incident and replied that he knows nothing about it, and that it's "not professional" to evaluate a fleet's capabilities based on individual incidents.
