[MrDisposable]

It was officially confirmed by the Russian defence department this morning. The official version: it sunk while it was being towed due to a storm (spoiler: there were no storms in the black sea at that time.)

My version: it sunk right away and they lied to save the face.

[rixrax]

I looked at the nautical charts for Black sea[0]. It looks like the area near Odessa is quite shallow (less than 100m (~300ft) deep). I'll hazard that it was a total loss from a get go, but they towed it just far enough to be able to let it sink to deeper waters (like 1000+ m deep (~ 3000ft)).

[0] https://www.oceangrafix.com/chart/zoom?chart=55001

[gubikmic]

What would be the reason for that?

[rixrax]

To make it more complicated for the west to recover intelligence and equipment from the ship. And of course this: https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraine-trolls-russia-over-sun...

[netsharc]

Ah, reminds me of the "Moscow residents please stay indoors, there will be a storm tonight" news bulletin after an officially not a nuclear incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyonoksa_radiation_accident

[lost_soul]

As I understand it, the Russian aircraft carrier gets towed all the time. So that might not be so far fetched.