On 13 April 2022, the Ukrainian government reported that their armed forces hit the Moskva
cruiser, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Later, Russia refuted that Moskva was hit,
but acknowledged that it was damaged due to an explosion of ammunition
caused by fire on the warship. It sank on April 14. In this video we are going to talk about
the history of the Moskva cruiser, its role in Russian military operations in the 21st century,
including the invasion of Ukraine, and the impact its sinking is going to have on the war.
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The Moskva cruiser was built in the 1970s in the Mykolaiv shipyard in the Ukrainian SSR and was
commissioned in 1983 under the name Slava (“Glory” in Russian). The Slava was a 186-meter long,
12490-tonne cruiser, which had a capacity to accommodate more than 500 crew members.
It carried surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, deck guns, torpedoes, mortars,
and possessed a helicopter deck. In the Cold War period, the Slava cruiser also carried nuclear
weapons. The most notable appearance of the Slava in the Cold War era news is related to the
use of the cruiser in the Malta meeting between Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush in Malta in 1989,
which housed the Soviet delegation and was supposed to host the meeting between the leaders,
but the gale forced the sides to meet on board of the Maxim Gorky cruiser instead.
In the same year, the American and Soviet scientists conducted joint tests aboard the Slava
cruiser to measure the emissions of neutrons and gamma rays from a nuclear warhead on this warship.
In 1990 the Slava was placed in the Mykolaiv shipyard for repairs and was kept there until
1999. While being repaired it was renamed the Moskva. After being recommissioned, it became the
flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in 2000. Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the
Moskva cruiser on several occasions to host talks with other world leaders. In 2003 Putin
and then-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi traveled together aboard the Moskva cruiser to
Sardinia, where Putin reportedly said “Thank God, our cruisers can still go on their own, our
planes and missiles can fly”. During this trip, Putin also visited the La Maddalena naval base,
operated by the United States. He interpreted his visit to this place and the presence of the Moskva
cruiser as an indicator that “the level of trust between Russia and the NATO countries is rising”.
But with the worsening of relations between Russia and NATO, the role of the Moskva cruiser
changed too. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia and the Moskva fought the Georgian navy.
After Russia recognized the independence of the separatist republic of Abkhazia, the warship was
stationed in its capital Sukhumi. It took part in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014,
as it blocked the Ukrainian warships from leaving Lake Donuzlav.
During the war in Syria, the Moskva cruiser was stationed in Eastern Mediterranean,
near the Syrian-Turkish border to provide air defense for the Russian aircraft carrying out
missions in Syria. In 2018 it was once again sent for repairs, which was completed in 2020.
As the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva cruiser was involved in the Russian
invasion of Ukraine in 2022 too. According to various reports, at this time the Moskva was armed
with 16 P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship cruise missiles with a range capability of at least 700 km,
S-300 anti-air missiles. Along with that, it was equipped with 6 close-in weapon
systems to protect the warship. It had a capability of 360-degree anti-air defense.
The former chief of the Russian navy’s general staff Viktor Kravchenko called the Moskva
cruiser “the most serious ship in the Black Sea”. It is confirmed that it was the Moskva, which was
tasked with ensuring the capture of the Zmiinyi (Snake) Island in the early days of the Russian
invasion. And yes, it was the Moskva, which demanded the surrender of the small contingent
of the Ukrainian troops stationed in the Zmiinyi and received an iconic response of “Fuck off,
Russian military ship!”, becoming the first major symbol of Ukrainian defiance in this war.
It is the only confirmed participation of the Moskva cruiser in this war, apart from its
sinking. But some military experts have talked about the presumed missions of this warship.
One of the reports claims that the Moskva played an important role in ensuring the
Russian air advantage over Crimea and the Kherson oblast, which had been occupied in the early
days of the invasion. But since Russia already possesses powerful air defense systems in Crimea,
the above claim about the role of the Moskva cruiser in the air defense of Crimea and
Kherson is possible to dispute. There have also been claims about the role the Moskva
cruiser played in the siege of Mariupol, which is disputed by the Institute for the Study of War,
which stated that this warship “unlikely to have supported Russian strikes on Ukrainian
land targets and primarily provided air defense coverage to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet”.
Some military analysts have also argued that the Moskva cruiser was going to have a role in the
amphibious landing of the Russian troops to the strategically important Black Sea port of Odesa.
The reports of the Ukrainian and Russian militaries regarding the sinking of the Moskva
cruiser conflict too. Ukraine claimed that the warship was hit by two Neptune anti-ship cruise
missiles of Ukrainian production on 13 April, around 100 kilometers off the coast of Odesa.
The Ukrainian command reported the capsizing and later sinking of the ship on the following day.
The Russian command acknowledged the damage to the Moskva cruiser but did not mention the Ukrainian
missile strikes. It claimed that the warship was on fire due to the explosion of ammunition on it.
They put out the fire, which damaged the ship, but did not sink it. But in the evening of 14 April,
Russia finally acknowledged the sinking of the Moskva cruiser,
which was allegedly caused due to the loss of “its stability when it was towed to the port because
of the damage to the ship’s hull that it received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition.
In stormy sea conditions, the ship sank.” The fate of the crew is unknown, but a large number
of casualties is highly likely. The photos released anonymously on the 17th of April show
extensive damage and fires on the ship. Some naval analysts claim that the 2 impact craters from
the Neptune missiles are clearly visible on the photos. We can also see the discouluration around
the portholes of the vessel, which might imply that the damage done by the missile explosion
caused fires both on the deck and below it. The fact that the rescue rafts that were seen
on the photos of Moskva published on the 10th of April in the vicinity of Sevastopol are missing in
the April 17 photos might mean that a considerable number of crewmembers might have escaped.
On the 16th the Russian Ministry of Defence published a video that allegedly shows the crew
of Moskva meeting the commander of the Russian Fleet in Sevastopol. Experts claim that only
around 200 sailors participated in this event. Now, what is the impact of the sinking of the
Moskva cruiser on the Russian offensive against Ukraine? In a military sense,
not much. According to a US official, Russia had employed warships in the war against Ukraine in
a limited manner “to carry out occasional strikes and resupply troops in the South”.
While Russia has two other missile cruisers of the same class - Marshal Ustinov and the Varyag, they
are deployed in Eastern Mediterranean, and Turkey has closed the straits in accordance with the 1936
Montreux Convention, which would prevent Russia from bringing exact substitution for their loss.
The biggest operational difference caused by the sinking of the Moskva
is the Russian Black Sea fleet moving further offshore to a distance of about 80 nautical miles.
This would make these ships out of the reach of Ukrainian land missiles. Moskva was crucial
for the amphibious assault operations, as it was supposed to cover the smaller,
more vulnerable landing ships, so this loss might make the possibly planned amphibious landings
unlikely. There is also an ongoing discussion on the number of Neptune missiles that Ukraine
was able to produce before the invasion started, but the possibility that there are more of them
might mean that the Russians won’t approach the coastal areas under Ukrainian control.
The biggest damage inflicted on Russia by the sinking of the Moskva cruiser is more
reputational. Even though the incident is not going to alter the course of the war in Ukraine,
it is a huge propaganda win for Ukraine. They were able to sink the flagship of the Russian
Black Sea Fleet with a Ukrainian missile. This ship had an apparent symbolic meaning for Putin,
as he had used it on several occasions as the venue of meetings with foreign leaders.
It also demonstrates that, while on paper the Russian military is mighty,
in real life it makes head-scratching mistakes in terms of adhering to necessary protocols
to ensure the protection of its military assets.
After all, the Moskva had everything to withstand the missile attack on it but failed to do so.
We are going to talk more about the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the coming weeks,
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