More than 24 hours after Ukraine claimed to have damaged the Russian warship Moskva in the Black Sea, Moscow confirmed the ship had sunk. Ukrainian officials had claimed late on Wednesday the country fired two Neptune anti-ship missiles to damage the Moskva. Russia had claimed ammunition on board the vessel had exploded, but did not confirm the Ukrainian claims.
On Thursday night, Russia's defence ministry said “During the towing of the Moskva cruiser to the port of destination, the ship lost its balance due to damage to the hull received during the fire following the detonation of ammunition. The ship sank in a stormy sea,” Sputnik reported.
Russia had said on Thursday night it had contained the fire on the Moskva. It earlier claimed to have evacuated the crew. There is no clarity on casualties, if any, in the incident.
The Moskva was the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. It was a cruiser displacing over 12,000 tonnes at full load and bristled with anti-ship, anti-aircraft and anti-submarine weapons.
Naval mines?
Analysts are debating other possible explanations for the damage to the Moskva in addition to the claims of a missile attack by Ukraine or a mishap on board the ship. USNI News quoted a US official as saying the fire on the Moskva started when it was about 60 nautical miles (111km) south of Odessa. The Neptune missile has a range of over 280km.
“It very well could have been from an external source... like a missile. That that range is not out of range for a Neptune. Sixty miles is well within the Neptune’s effective range. But it also could have been something else. So again, … we’re just being careful here,” the official was quoted as saying by USNI News.
Earlier this month, both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of laying mines in the Black Sea. Turkish and Romanian divers had defused stray mines in their waters in recent weeks.
Impact
Irrespective of how it was damaged, the loss of the Moskva, named after Moscow, is considered a major embarrassment for Russia. “The news of the flagship's damage overshadowed Russian claims of advances in the southern port city of Mariupol, where Moscow's forces have been battling the Ukrainians since the early days of the invasion in some of the heaviest fighting of the war—at a horrific cost to civilians,” AP reported.
The Moskva is considered the largest warship to be lost in combat since the UK's Royal Navy sank the Argentine warship General Belgrano in the 1982 Falklands War. The General Belgrano was a World War 2-era cruiser of the US Navy that was armed with long-range guns and anti-ship missiles and had a displacement of about 12,000 tonnes. It was sunk by the Royal Navy's nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror. More than 300 crew members of the Belgrano were killed in the attack, which was the first sinking of a surface ship by a nuclear submarine.