A blow to the Russians, “more psychological than material damage.” This is how the wreck of the missile cruiser Moskva, the main ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was classified after it was hit by an explosion on Wednesday (13th).
At 12,500 tons, it is the largest Russian warship sunk in combat since World War II. The ship, with 510 crew members, was a symbol of military power and led the naval leg of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Although Vladimir Putin repeatedly insists that his “military special operation” in Ukraine proceeds successfully “as planned”, “this is a very great symbolic loss,” said retired French admiral Pascal Ausseur, director general of the analysis center Fundação Mediterránea de Estudos Estratégicos ( FMES).
“It’s a 12,000 ton ship that sank in 12 hours […] It’s not normal,” he told AFP.
Jenny Hill, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, says the sinking of the Moskva River is a “significant and humiliating” loss for the Russian president. “What was once a symbol of Russia’s power and ambition now lies at the bottom of the sea,” the journalist said.
But for Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies of Ukraine, the damage is “psychological rather than material.”
“Russian ships will now be forced to move away from the Ukrainian coast, where they can no longer feel safe,” he explains. But the sinking “will not completely end Russia’s naval blockade of Ukraine,” said he, who advises the Ukrainian government on military strategy.
The Moskva did not fire missiles at Ukrainian land targets, but military experts told the BBC the ship provided crucial support to other vessels doing so.
She is the only ship in the fleet to have longrange air defense on board, said Sidharth Kaushal, a maritime energy specialist at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
As a result, the other ships in the Russian fleet will now be more vulnerable to air attack although it’s unclear whether Ukrainian forces, which have suffered numerous casualties since the war began, have the resources to take advantage of the situation.
“The Moscow River has been a thorn in the side of Ukrainians since the beginning of this conflict,” said Michael Petersen of the Russian Maritime Research Institute. For many years it was a symbol of Russian naval power in the Black Sea.
A plume of dark smoke is seen on a ship believed to be the Moksva
Image: Reproduction/Telegram
With her armament, the cruiser completely protected a diameter of 150 kilometers around her, explained Nick Brown, a specialist at the British private information institute Janes. “With Turkey blocking Russian ships in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, it will be difficult for Russia to replace its air defense capability,” but “the rest of the Black Sea Fleet remains an important fighting force.”
Especially with the modern Admiral Grigorovichtype frigates, which despite their shorter range are equipped with more advanced antiaircraft defenses than the Moskva, and Kalibr landattack missiles.
The Slavaclass cruiser is the thirdlargest active ship in Russia’s entire fleet and one of its armaments with the best defense system, said Jonathan Bentham, a naval expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It was equipped with a threelayer air defense system which, when working properly, provided three options for protection in the event of a Neptune missile attack.
In addition to medium and shortrange defense, he could also activate six closein defense weapon systems as a last resort.
“Moskva must have 360degree air defense coverage. The CIWS (Close Defense Weapon System) system can fire 5,000 rounds in a minute and essentially creates an artillery wall around the cruiser, her last line of defense,” explains Bentham.
If it turned out that the attack came from a missile, “it raises questions about the modernization capability of the Russian surface fleet: whether it had enough ammunition, whether it had technical problems.”
“Basically, in theory, this threelayer air defense system would be very difficult to get right,” added the military expert.
For Maia Otarashvili of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Washington, the Russian Navy’s involvement in the war was fairly limited. And now Ukraine may have proved it has naval defense capabilities unconsidered by Moscow. “What kind of antiship missiles has Ukraine received lately?” he stressed.
“It’s a very small sea, everything is within range of antiship missiles, and its detection is very easy,” Ausseur added. Therefore, the loss of the Moskva reveals “a real vulnerability” for the Russian Navy.
According to the British assessment, the sinking of the Moskva is the second significant loss for Russia during the war in Ukraine, which could force Russia to “review its maritime posture”.
British intelligence indicates that on March 24, the Alligatorclass ship Saratov was also disabled. The Saratov was hit by a large fire and destroyed, but did not sink.
According to the New York Times, the Moskva sinking is the most significant naval loss since 1982, when Argentina sank the British military ship Sheffield and struck other ships during the Falklands War.
nuclear impact
In addition to the political and military damage, a possible nuclear impact cannot be ruled out.
On Facebook, Andrii Klymenko, project leader at the Institute for Strategic Studies of the Black Sea, drew attention to the possibility that two nuclear warheads could be on board the Moskva.
“This may be new to many, but it’s a ship that carries nuclear weapons,” he said.
Klymenko draws attention to the need to find the alleged warheads and understand where exactly the explosion took place on the ship. (With BBC Brasil and international agencies)