They are a sacrifice putin is willing to make. There will be no memorial for them, as they never officially died. Some widow might get a bag of wheat or a net of onions though.
I wonder what the actual condition of the Russian navy is at this point. I heard their ships were generally in poor condition even before the war (those reports of the Moskva’s air defense being crippled before it left port, for example), and now they’re losing so many trained crew. Last I heard their shipyards were roughly keeping pace with losses in terms of tonnage but you can’t just herd conscripts on a ship and expect it to function at all.
I mean the Russian navy has a history of being totally inept (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima). Some things don’t seem to change that much.
Indeed, they even managed to lose a naval battle to a landlocked state that didn’t exist yet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Baikal).
