Russian cruiser Moskva
Moskva [ˈmɒsk.və] (Russian: Москва, lit. 'Moscow'- ), formerly Slava (Russian: Слава, lit. 'Glory'), was a guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy. The ship was the lead ship of the Project 1164 Atlant class and was named after the city of Moscow. She was the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and helped lead the naval assault during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The cruiser had previously been deployed in several military conflicts, including in Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), and Syria (2015).
With a crew of 510, she was the most powerful surface vessel in the Black Sea region. She sank on 14 April 2022 in the Black Sea, 100 km from the coast of Odessa. Ukrainian officials and the US Department of Defense said Ukraine attacked the cruiser with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles. The Russian Ministry of Defence said a fire caused a munitions explosion. The Russian Navy attempted to tow the damaged ship toward Sevastopol, but she sank before reaching the port. The last sunken warship of a similar size was the cruiser ARA General Belgrano (ex USS Phoenix CL-46) sunk during the Falklands War in 1982.
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, helped lead the naval assault during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[3][4] She was the most powerful surface vessel in the Black Sea region at the time.[7]
Attack on Snake Island
In February 2022, the cruiser left Sevastopol to participate in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[46] The ship was later used against the Ukrainian armed forces during the attack on Snake Island, together with the Russian patrol boat Vasily Bykov.[47] Moskva hailed the island's garrison over the radio and demanded its surrender, and was told "Russian warship, go fuck yourself". After this, all contact was lost with Snake Island, and the thirteen-member Ukrainian garrison was captured, contrary to previous Ukrainian claims that the garrison had been martyred.[48]
Sinking
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych and Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko said their forces hit Moskva in the late hours of 13 April 2022, with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles, and she was on fire in rough seas.[50] There were reports of an explosion and subsequent fire involving one of Moskva's exposed deckside missile tubes.[51] The Ukranian missiles were apparently fired from a land-based launcher near Odesa while Moskva was located 60–65 nautical miles (about 100 km) offshore.[51][52][53][54] The cruiser was equipped with a triple-tiered air defence system that if operated properly should have given her three opportunities to defend herself from a Neptune missile attack.[49][7]
The next day, the Ukrainian Southern Command said that Moskva had capsized and was beginning to sink.[55]
The Russian Ministry of Defence said that a fire had caused munitions to explode, and that the ship had been seriously damaged, without any reference to a Ukrainian strike.[56][57][58] The ministry said that the crew had been fully evacuated; however, on 15 April, Ukrainian sources claimed lives were lost, including the ship's captain.[59] The ministry added on 14 April that the missile systems of the cruiser were undamaged, the fire was contained by sailors, and that efforts were underway to tow the ship to port.[52][60] Later on 14 April, the Russian ministry said that Moskva sank while being towed during stormy weather.[7][61] The sinking, reportedly due to "stormy seas", was briefly reported on Russian news media and television on 15 April 2022.[7]
US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said that imagery on 14 April showed the ship had suffered a sizable explosion and a subsequent "significant fire". The cause of the explosion was not clear. Moskva, with fire on board, appeared to be headed towards port in Sevastopol for repairs,[62][63] and it was unclear whether the vessel was moving under her own power or being towed.[64] On 15 April, a US senior official stated that they believe Moskva was hit by two Neptune missiles.[65] He also stated that the ship was about 65 nautical miles south of Odesa and moved under her own power for some time after the missiles hit, before sinking on 14 April.[66] The official also said that there would be casualties.[67]
Casualties
Lithuania's Defence Minister Arvydas Anušauskas said on 14 April that a distress signal had been sent from Moskva that day, and a Turkish ship responded, evacuating 54 personnel from the cruiser at 2 a.m., before she sank at 3 a.m. According to him, there were 485 crew on board, of whom 66 were officers. It was not known how many had survived.[68][69][70][2]
Ukrainian sources reported that First Rank Captain Anton Kuprin (age 44), commanding officer of the ship, had been killed in the explosion and fire.[59]
Russia has released a video in which it claims to have held a meeting with 100 sailors from the Moskva, along with Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov. The meeting occurred at Sevastopol. Admiral Yevmenov said that the sailors would continue their service in the Navy. [71]
Impact
Moskva is the largest warship to be sunk in action since World War II.[72] The last time a warship of similar size was sunk was the cruiser ARA General Belgrano, which was sunk by the Royal Navy in 1982 during the Falklands War.[62] Moskva was the largest Soviet or ex-Soviet ship to be sunk by enemy action since German aircraft bombed the Soviet battleship Marat in 1941,[12] the largest Soviet or ex-Soviet warship to sink since the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk in 1955, the largest Russian warship to sink due to enemy action since the battleship Slava was lost in the Battle of Moon Sound in 1917, and the first loss of a Russian flagship in wartime since the sinking in 1905 of the battleship Knyaz Suvorov during the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.[73] If Ukrainian claims are true, Moskva "would potentially be the largest warship ever taken out of action by a missile", according to Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.[62]
The loss of Moskva is considered significant and humiliating to Russian president Vladimir Putin, but "more about psychological damage than material damage" according to Mykola Bielieskov from Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies. He said that it would not completely lift Russia's naval blockade on Ukraine, but showed that Ukraine could employ sophisticated weaponry effectively.[7]
Moskva was the only warship in Russia's Black Sea Fleet with the S-300F missile system for long-range air defence; she did not herself fire missiles at land targets in Ukraine, but provided anti-aircraft support to vessels that did, and her sinking prompted Russian ships to move further offshore. The remaining vessels in the Black Sea fleet will now be more vulnerable to aerial attacks, although it is not clear that Ukraine will be able to take advantage of this.[7] Retired US rear admiral Samuel J. Cox, the director of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, stated that without Moskva "any amphibious assault on Ukraine will be much more dangerous for Russia, with its landing and amphibious ships much more vulnerable to attacks."[74] While Moskva has two sister ships deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean, for the duration of the war Turkey has closed the Turkish Straits to belligerent warships whose home port is not in the Black Sea, following the Montreux Convention. Thus Russia cannot legally send ships to replace the lost Moskva from its other fleet bases.[75][76]
Aftermath
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the sinking of Moskva "is a big blow to Russia", forcing "Moscow to choose between two stories. One story is that it was just incompetence, and the other is that they came under attack. And neither is a particularly good outcome".[79] US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said that Moskva's main mission was air defense for the Russian forces in the Black Sea and that her sinking "will have an impact on that capability, certainly in the near term".[80]
According to an analysis by Forbes Ukraine on 14 April 2022, the sinking of Moskva is the most costly single loss for the Russian military in the war to date, and would cost around US$750 million to replace.[81]
Although Russia did not confirm that Ukrainian missiles had hit the ship, Reuters reported that in the morning of 15 April, Russia launched an apparent retaliatory missile strike against the missile factory Luch Design Bureau in Kyiv where the Neptune missiles used in the Moskva attack were manufactured and designed.[82]
The sinking of Moskva occurred shortly after Ukraine's national postal service released one million stamps depicting a Ukrainian fighter holding up a middle finger in front of the vessel, with the sinking boosting sales of the stamp in Ukraine.[83] Some people in Ukraine queued for more than two hours to get the stamp.[84] The sinking of Moskva can be seen as resulting in the boosting of the morale of many Ukrainians and has also decreased the morale of the invading Russian forces.[85]
Morning TV bulletins in Russia limited themselves to briefly reporting the statement issued by the authorities, who claim the ship sank in stormy seas after fire and explosions on board caused significant damage to her hull. Some newspaper commentators appeared to support that, arguing that the fire-extinguishing systems on board the forty-year-old warship were out of date and inefficient, but several writers agreed that the development would not change the course of the war. No Russian TV talk show host speculated on Ukraine's claims that it had struck the ship, but a clearly emotional studio guest, film director and former State Duma member Vladimir Bortko, said the fate of Moskva was grounds for war. This is the closest any Russian source has come to saying something other than that the sinking was caused by an accident; Russian commentators have otherwise repeated the official version of the government.[7]
Three Ukraine-based publications wrote in the aftermath that Moskva had the capability to carry nuclear warheads, and that she may have been carrying two nuclear warheads at the time of her sinking. They called for neighboring nations to launch an investigation into the possibility of a nuclear accident.
copied by wikepedia.
Comments
Post a Comment