Dramatic images of sinking Russian warship Moskva surface online

Image showing a burning Moskva. Twitter/ @oliverdasgupta

Dramatic images of sinking Russian warship Moskva surface online after it was reportedly hit by Ukrainian missiles. DER SPIEGEL journalist Oliver Das Gupta posted a picture of a burning Moskva on Monday. Check the photo here:

Max Sheddon, the Moscow bureau chief of Financial Times, on the other hand shared a brief video of the same:

The three-second video clip shows the Moskva in the distance listing heavily on her port side. Smoke can be seen billowing out of the ship, with a section of the freeboard heavily damaged. Holes are also visible in other parts of the freeboard in one picture, suggesting the warship had taken in a substantial amount of water. It also appears all of the vessel’s lifeboats had been deployed.

Why is this of interest

On 13 April Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the Moskva missile cruiser with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard it but not an attack.

Maksym Marchenko, the governor of the Odesa region, said Ukraine struck the ship late Wednesday with two Neptune missiles and caused “serious damage.” Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, later said he was unable to confirm its fate or if it even had been hit by Ukrainian forces.

The Moskva was about 100 to 104 kilometers due south of Odesa when the fire occurred, according to a senior US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal US military assessments.

But in his nightly video address to the nation, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alluded to the sinking as he told Ukrainians they should be proud of having survived 50 days under attack when the Russians “gave us a maximum of five.”

Listing the many ways Ukraine has defended against the invasion, he noted “those who showed that Russian warships can sail away, even if it’s to the bottom” of the sea. It was his only reference to the missile cruiser.

The Russian defence ministry on the other hand said the heavily damaged Moskva sank in a storm under tow after being gutted by fire. It previously said the blaze set off some of its weapons and forced the crew to evacuate. It denied there had been an attack by Ukraine on the ship, which would normally have about 500 sailors aboard.

The sinking of Moskva

The loss of the warship named for the Russian capital is a devastating symbolic defeat for Moscow.

The Moskva had the capacity to carry 16 long-range cruise missiles, and its removal reduces Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea. It’s also a blow to Moscow’s prestige in a war already widely seen as a historic blunder.

During the first days of the war, the Moskva was reportedly the ship that called on Ukrainian soldiers stationed on Snake Island in the Black Sea to surrender in a standoff. 

History

The warship was launched as the Slava from a shipyard in Mykolaiv in what was then the Soviet republic of Ukraine in July 1979, according to open-source intelligence firm Janes. Commissioned in late December 1982, it was 611.5 feet (186 meters) long. It was designed to carry a crew of 476 with an additional 62 officers.

The Slava served as the flagship of the Soviet fleet in the Black Sea. It carried both surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, deck guns, torpedoes and mortars. It also had a helicopter deck.

During the Cold War, it also carried nuclear weapons. In 1989, under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, US and Soviet scientists took part in a joint test abroad the Slava in the Black Sea to measure the emission of neutrons and gamma rays from a nuclear warhead on a cruise missile.

According to The Associated Press the Slava underwent repairs from 1990-1999. During that time, the Soviet Union collapsed, an independent Ukraine emerged and Russia’s economy foundered. Finally overhauled and rechristened the Moskva, the ship hosted both President Vladimir Putin and then-Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi during a 2003 visit to Sardinia.

“Thank God, our cruisers can still go on their own, our planes and missiles can fly,” Putin said at the time.

Putin’s later comments at the La Maddalena naval base show how much has changed. He described the Moskva’s presence as a sign that “the level of trust between Russia and the NATO countries is rising.” NATO’s eastward expansion and Russian security were among the reasons Putin cited for sending troops to Ukraine.

During Russia’s war in its former republic of Georgia in 2008, the Moskva took part in operations in the Black Sea, and Georgia said it was involved in an attack on the country.

In 2014, as Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, the Moskva blocked Ukrainian naval vessels from leaving Lake Donuzlav.

In 2015-16, it was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea to provide support for the Russian military campaign backing Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war. Its sailors were decorated for their service there and in the war on Georgia.

The Moskva underwent repairs and modernization from 2018 to July 2020, according to Janes.

With input from agencies

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