Furious parents of Russian conscripts assured they would be kept out of harm’s way but are feared to have died aboard the Moskva have accused the Kremlin of war crimes.
Several young sailors are missing presumed dead as they were aboard the warship when it was hit by Ukrainian missiles last week.
Last month Vladimir Putin assured concerned families their loved ones would not be in danger after they were conscripted into the army to support the invasion.
Now the devastated families have shared images of eight who are feared to have died.
Nikita Efremenko, 19, Andrey Tsyvov, 19, Nikita Syromyasov, 20, Leonid Savin, 18 or 19, Yegor Shkrebets, 20, Sergey Grudinin, 21, from Amur region, and Danil Gerok, 22, are among those MIA.
Igor Kutnyak is another and there are likely to be many more who perished on the Moskva.
Dmitry Shkrebets, father of Yegor Shkrebets, has launched a campaign to force Moscow to reveal the truth about what happened to the warship.
He told Current Times: "All the guilty should be punished for what they did, or rather, what they didn't do.
"Because these boys - 19-20 years old - should not have been there during these operations. They should have been landed in Sevastopol.
"When it all happened, yes, I found out that no one had landed them since the [start], they were on the ship the whole time.
"But if I then started making all this noise, then this would be the disclosure of secret information."
"We must open all this abscess and punish all those responsible, why the boys were not dropped off.
"Whatever happens, scumbags have no nationality.
"A war crime has occurred and all those involved must be punished."
Russia has still not revealed how many survived from the 510-strong crew in the attack on April 14.
Frantic mother Olesya Dubinina, has demanded a rescue operation in the hope her son, Nikita Syromyasov, is still alive, trapped in a sealed air bubble in the wreck.
She said: "For sure, when it sank there were still living people - wounded, unconscious. For sure, there are battened down parts of the ship that have not been flooded."
Tatyana Efremenko, mother of Nikita, threatened to go to the scene of the attack herself to look for answers.
She added: "The only thing they told me was that my son was on duty in the dining room at the time of the fire. I'm tired of fighting on the phone.
"It's just scary. It's so scary that I don't understand how this was allowed. I don't understand what the conscript children were doing on the Moskva.
"It is beyond the limit."
It comes amid claims the captain abandoned the warship when the Russian naval vessel was hit by Ukrainian missiles.
First Rank Captain Anton Kuprin, 44, reported as dead by the Ukrainians, appears to have survived after being pictured at the weekend.
In March, Putin specifically assured Russia’s mothers: “Conscripts are not engaged, and will not be engaged in military actions.”
Russian defence minister Shoigu said at the time many of those called up would begin to be dispatched to their assigned bases in late May.
He added: "Most military personnel will undergo professional training in training centres for three to five months. Let me emphasize that recruits will not be sent to any hot spots."
The Moskva hit headlines in the early days of the war when its sailors were told by Ukrainians on Snake Island to go "f*** themselves. "
