What remains of the 186-meter-long Moskva, one of the largest ships of the Russian navy, is still unclear. Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky, said the cruiser had sunk. “The biggest defeat of the Russian fleet since World War II,” the adviser said on Twitter.
But Russia claims that the fire that broke out in the Moskva has been extinguished. According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, an attempt is being made to tow the warship back to the port. The last time such a large naval vessel went into war was nearly 40 years ago when a British submarine torpedoed Argentine Admiral Belgrano during the Falklands War. There were then 323 deaths.
According to the Russians, the passengers of the Moskva had been evacuated. It is not clear how many people are involved, but the ship has room for 480 people on board. There were no reports of deaths or injuries. Moscow says a fire broke out on board Wednesday evening, after which the ammunition exploded. “The ship sustained serious damage,” the ministry said in response to Ukrainian social media posts that the Moskva had been targeted by the Ukrainians.
The ministry was silent about the cause of the fire. The blast must have been huge, as the cruiser is armed with some 120 missiles to destroy ships and planes.
Ukrainian cruise missiles
However, Ukraine, which in recent weeks has watched ships of the Black Sea fleet fire salvos of cruise missiles, has a completely different story. According to the governor of the region around the port city of Odessa, Maksym Marchenko, the Moskva would have been hit by two Ukrainian-made Neptune cruise missiles. However, the government in Kyiv has not yet confirmed this. Marchenko also said the warship had sustained heavy damage. “Hallelujah,” the governor said in a Telegram message.
He referred to the deployment of the Moskva at the start of the Russian invasion. The ship was then involved in an operation to expel Ukrainian soldiers from the tiny Snake Island in the Black Sea. However, they refused to leave and told the Russians to go ‘to hell’. “The Moskva went exactly where the border guards on Snake Island said they should go today,” Marchenko said.
Should the cruiser have been the target of a daring Ukrainian attack, the question arises why the Moskva was unable to defend itself. The ship has S-300 missiles to take down enemy cruise missiles. The Neptune is a derivative of a Russian cruise missile and was commissioned last year. With this missile, ships can be bombarded from land up to about three hundred kilometers out to sea.
Effective
The Ukrainian cruise missile has been tested in recent years. This would have shown that it was quite effective. It is unclear how much Neptune Ukraine has and why the weapon, if indeed there was an attack, has only now been deployed by Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army has fired on another Russian warship in recent weeks, but it is unknown which missile was used. In March, the landing ship Orsk was hit by a direct hit in the occupied port city of Berdyansk. Footage showed that the Orsk was on fire and badly damaged.
In the past week it became clear that the Russians must fear for the safety of their Black Sea fleet. The British promised to deliver anti-ship missiles to Kyiv last week. This delivery makes it more difficult for the Russian navy to operate in complete freedom close to the Ukrainian coast. However, the British missiles have not yet arrived. Now if the Neptune cruise missiles also pose a significant threat to the Russian ships, Moscow has an even bigger problem.