Daily Mail: Russia begins secret operation to remove the dead from sunken cruiser "Moskva" PHOTO/VIDEO

Russian forces secretly conducted a macabre operation to remove the dead from the sunken cruiser Moskva, reports have claimed.

The flagship of Putin's Black Sea Fleet was sunk on 14 April by a suspected Ukrainian Neptune missile strike.

Russia has still not acknowledged the huge death toll, so far only admitting one casualty from the embarrassing blow to the Kremlin war effort. But Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed Russia carried out a two-week salvage operation involving seven vessels following the sinking, The Daily Mail reports.

It comes amid a new claim that young naval sailors were "left to drown" while "officers fled the ship like rats".

"They retrieved the bodies, removed all the equipment that was classified, and cleansed this cruiser," said Vadym Skibitskyi, spokesman for the Kyiv defence ministry's main intelligence directorate.

Ishi Svoikh Telegram channel added: "It is completely unclear what happened to the bodies next."

The latest claims confirmed an earlier Russian assertion that the holed vessel sank while under tow towards naval port Sevastopol.

The ship became infamous for a clip of a Ukrainian soldier telling the Russian warship 'go f*** yourself' at the outbreak of the war. It is the largest Russian warship to be sunk since World War II, and the first of a similar size since ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War in 1982.

The reported gruesome operation to retrieve the dead amid after rising fury from relatives of the crew over an alleged cover-up by the Russian authorities over the fate of many sailors, a large proportion of whom were conscripts.

A father leading the campaign, Dmitry Shkrebets, 43, said: 'There were no rescue efforts. Officers fled the ship like rats, the sailors were abandoned.' He vowed: 'Putin will answer personally. He is used to lying.'

He lost his son Yegor, 20, in the sinking. "Want to know why there were no badly wounded survivors from the Moskva? Because they sank them together with the cruiser. They couldn't tug the ship to Sevastopol, because everyone would realize what happened, so overnight from 13 to 14 April they pulled it further south, and sank it" Shkrebets said.

He confirmed his son was a conscript who had not signed a contract as a career member of the navy, like many others on the vessel.

Admiral Igor Osipov, 49, in charge of the Black Sea Fleet, has not been seen since his flagship Moskva sank, prompting rumours that he has been suspended or detained or was even on board, the report says.