On Thursday (14th), Russia suffered a significant casualty: the sinking of the Moskva ship, considered a symbol of the country’s military might. In the war with Ukraine, the ship a rocket launcher weighing 12,500 tons and 186 m long played a strategic role in capturing Ukrainian ports such as Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.
Russia claims the ship caught fire and sank after a fire in its own ammunition, while Ukraine claims responsibility for attacks that led to the ship’s loss. The United States confirms the Ukrainian version. Neither version can be independently verified.
Beginning of the fire and shipwreck
The whole imbroglio with Moskva began last Wednesday evening (13) (from the Kyiv zone) when sources from the European Union and Ukrainian authorities said that Ukraine had launched Neptuntype antiship missiles at the Black Sea.
Only on Thursday morning (14) did Russia assume that the ship was on fire and has since insisted on the version that it was caused by a fire in the ammunition inside the ship and not an attack from the outside.
Throughout the day, officials watched how the Moskva would behave after the fire. Around 2 p.m. (local time 8 a.m. GMT) on Thursday, the Southern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that the ship had sunk.
It was only on Thursday at 10:00 p.m. (local time) that Russia confirmed the sinking of the ship “due to stormy conditions while being towed to the port of Sevastopol,” according to the Defense Ministry.
The conditions of the ship’s crew of around 500 military personnel are also not known with certainty.
The Russians claim that the entire crew was evacuated. Ukraine claims ships were sent to help evacuate the ship but were hampered by a storm and there was no evacuation of the ship.
Detail of the Russian rocket launcher Moskva when it was in the Black Sea
Image: Denis Sinyakov/Reuters
Ukrainian newspaper Pravda published satellite information from the Naval News website. According to the analysis of the infrared images, the first major explosion occurred on Wednesday at 6:52 a.m. (local time) when several Russian ships approached the distressed vessel.
According to the analysis, the position of the Moskva confirms the version that there was an attack by Ukraine, since the ship was in the area hit by the missiles.
What does the US say
The US confirms the Ukrainian version. The ship sank after being hit by two missiles, according to a US Department of Defense official.
The official called the incident a “hard blow” to Russia, according to the AFP news agency. “We appreciate that [o navio] was hit by two [mísseis] Neptunes,” the official, who asked for anonymity, told reporters.
However, the American official did not confirm the version that the Ukrainian army distracted the defense of the Moskva River with a drone on one side of the boat, while Neptune antiship cruise missiles hit it from the other side.
“We think there were casualties, but it’s hard to say how many,” he said. The source also reported, always according to AFP, that other Russian ships were helping to evacuate the ship.
The official added that according to the Montreux Convention, “Turkey will not allow warships to enter the Black Sea and [os russos] will not be able to replace it with any other Slavaclass ship”.
Effects of Ship Loss
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.
The most important ship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, the Moskva
PICTURED: REUTERS/Alexey Pavlishak
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.
After losing its main ship, Russia has announced that it will intensify attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Russian attacks in the region have been rare since late March, when troops withdrew from the capital to concentrate in eastern Ukraine.
“The number and scale of rocket attacks on sites in Kyiv will increase in response to all terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage carried out on Russian territory by the nationalist regime in Kyiv,” the Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday.
Since then, explosions have been recorded across the city. In the Vasilkiv district, southwest of Kyiv, a workshop and factory for antiaircraft and antiship missiles was bombed.
On Saturday, Kiev Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said at least one person was killed in recent blasts in Darnytskyi district. He also speaks about injuries that are still being counted and treated at a hospital in the region.
how was the ship
According to Russian news agencies, the Moskva was armed with 16 antiship cruise missiles known as the P1000 Vulkan, which have a range of at least 700 km.
The ship was commissioned in 1983. It was used in the 2015 Syrian War as naval protection for the Hmeimim Air Base of the Russian Armed Forces and in other military operations. In addition, it had a range of antisubmarine weapons, rocket launchers, cannons and torpedoes.
According to British intelligence, Moskva was one of only three Slavaclass cruisers in the Russian Navy. The British claim that the ship underwent a major refurbishment to improve its capacity and only returned to operational condition in 2021.
According to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti, it has been renovated and modernized twice, most recently between 2018 and 2020.
Forbes magazine estimates the ship’s value at $750 million based on the value of the refurbishment and another ship of the same class.
He rose to prominence early in the war for taking part in an attack on Snake Island on the Romanian border, in which 19 Ukrainian sailors were captured and exchanged for Russian prisoners.