Surf foaming at its bow, the great gray battleship seemed a potent symbol of Russian military might.
Yet officials in Moscow were licking their wounds on Wednesday after putting the ship on 20 giant billboards across the city to congratulate the military on its annual Defenders of the Fatherland day.
War veterans gearing up for the holiday yesterday were incensed to see the ship was clearly the famous World War II US battleship the USS Missouri.
"Did they want to insult us?" Captain Vladimir Zakharov asked a local journalist as he passed one of the billboards opposite the White House, home to the Russian Cabinet. "Like, you don't have any of your own hardware left, so take at look at someone else's?"
Despite its crumbling military, an intense pride is maintained in Russia's fighting prowess. The Missouri appeared next to a Russian Sukhoi jet and the slogan: "Happy holiday, warriors of Russia."
A spokesman for the Moscow government's advertising committee said the mistake was a "simple technical error" and officials were telephoning veterans' groups to apologize.
She said the picture of the Missouri, with its distinctive "63" marking, had been mixed up with the Russian artillery cruiser Slava.
A spokesman for the ministry of defense told Interfax it had no connection with the advertising.
Eduard Baltin, former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, blamed the designers, saying, "Once they get their money, they don't care who or what they put on these things."
But, he added: "It's not such a big deal to confuse two great heroic ships. It's much worse when [US Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld mixes up Iraq and Iran."
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS