Sinking of the Moskva

Sinking of the Moskva

Moskva seen from the air in 2012
Date	14 April 2022 (2022-04-14)
Location	Black Sea
Coordinates	45°10′43″N 30°55′31″E
Type	Maritime disaster
Cause	Disputed
Participants	Russian Navy

The Russian cruiser Moskva sank on 14 April 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reportedly after it was hit by two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles fired by Ukrainian forces.

Background

In February 2022, the cruiser left Sevastopol to participate in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The ship was later used against the Ukrainian armed forces during the attack on Snake Island, together with the Russian patrol boat Vasily Bykov. 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.

Sinking

Ukrainian claim

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych and Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko said their Ukrainian forces hit Moskva in the late hours of 13 April 2022, with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles, and ship was on fire in rough seas. There were reports of an explosion and subsequent fire involving one of Moskva's exposed deckside missile tubes. The Ukrainian missiles were apparently fired from a land-based launcher near Odesa while Moskva was located 60–65 nautical miles (111–120 km; 69–75 mi) offshore. The cruiser's air defense system should have provided three levels of defense against the attack.

The next day, the Ukrainian Southern Command said that Moskva had capsized and was beginning to sink.

Russian claim

Hours after the initial Ukrainian claim, the Russian Ministry of Defence said that a fire had caused munitions to explode, and that the ship had been seriously damaged, without any statement of cause or reference to a Ukrainian strike. The ministry said 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. Later on 14 April, the Russian ministry said that Moskva sank while being towed during stormy weather, although the weather was reportedly mild. On 15 April, the sinking was briefly reported on Russian news media and television, where it was said to be due to "stormy seas".

Other observations

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, it was unclear whether the vessel was moving under her own power or being towed. On 15 April, a US senior official stated that they believe Moskva was hit by two Neptune missiles; he also stated that the ship was about 65 nautical miles south of Odesa when she was struck and that she continued onward under her own power before sinking on 14 April. The official also said intelligence appraisals indicated there were casualties at the time of the strike, but he did not know how many.

While the cruiser was equipped with a triple-tiered anti-ship missile defense that would have provided an adequate chance of intercepting the incoming Neptune missiles, there was no record of the crew activating these systems, including the S-300F surface-to-air missiles, launching CHAFF or decoys, electronic jamming, or the last ditch close-in weapon system. It has been suggested that the cruiser's radar either failed to detect the incoming Neptune missiles or that the defenses were not ready to engage the detected threat, implying a lack of crew training for such emergency scenarios. The cruiser was expected to survive several strikes from Neptune missiles due to its large displacement, as long as munitions were not detonated in the impact, so poor damage control has been suggested as a reason why the cruiser sunk.

On 18 April, two images circulated on social media showing Moskva after the alleged missile strike/ammunition fire and prior to the final sinking. The images show the ship listing to port, with signs of extensive fire damage around the central superstructure, and most of the ships life rafts missing, indicating the crew had evacuated by this point. Of note, the images appear to show the ships radar and anti-aircraft missiles in a neutral/non active state.

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 am, before she sank at 3 am. According to him, there were 485 crew on board, of whom 66 were officers. It was not known how many had survived.

Ukrainian sources reported on 15 April that some of Moskva's crew were killed, including First Rank Captain Anton Kuprin (age 44), the ship's commanding officer, at the time of the explosion. American sources also believed that there had been casualties. The independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe reported some 40 sailors had been killed at the time of the sinking.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said soon after the sinking that the crew had been evacuated, and have not reported any casualties. On 16 April, Russia released a video allegedly showing a meeting in Sevastopol with around 100 sailors of Moskva, along with Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov, who said that the sailors would continue their service in the Navy. According to independent Russian online newspaper The Insider, about 100 sailors, and notably the First Rank Captain of the ship Anton Kuprin, are visible in the video. Naval News reported that the Russian Defence Ministry video showed around 240 people survived, about half the crew. The Ukrainian edition of Radio Svoboda, however, says that it is impossible to verify the authenticity of the video.

Impact

Moskva is the largest warship to be sunk in action since World War II. The last time a warship of similar size was sunk was the slightly smaller Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano, which was sunk by the British Royal Navy in 1982 during the Falklands War. Moskva was the largest Soviet or Russian ship to be sunk by enemy action since German aircraft bombed the Soviet battleship Marat in 1941, 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. If Ukrainian claims are true, Moskva might be the largest warship ever disabled or destroyed 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.

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.

In 2020, the archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church Sevastopol District said that what he described as a fragment of the True Cross on which believers say Jesus was crucified and a very rare relic important to all Christians, would be kept in Moskva's chapel. There was speculation after the ship's sinking—thought in 2020 to have been so unlikely that such a precious object was entrusted to it—that the relic may have gone down with the ship.

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, now less protected, to move further offshore. It is unclear whether Ukraine will be able to capitalize on their increased vulnerability. The New York Times reported: "Now [after the sinking], Admiral Cox [retired US Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, the director of the Naval History and Heritage Command], said, any amphibious assault on Ukraine will be much more dangerous for Russia, with its landing and amphibious ships much more vulnerable to attacks."

While Moskva had two sister ships deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean as of February 2022, 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.

Aftermath

Ukrainian postage stamp, depicting a Ukrainian soldier giving Russian cruiser Moskva the middle finger, issued two days before she sank

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the sinking of Moskva "is a big blow to Russia", with Moscow split between a narrative of incompetence and one of having been attacked. 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".

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.

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.

The sinking of Moskva came two days after Ukrposhta released one million "Russian warship, go fuck yourself" stamps, which show a soldier giving the finger to Moskva. The sinking boosted sales of the stamp in Ukraine. Some people in Ukraine queued for more than two hours to get the stamp. The sinking of Moskva can be seen as resulting in the boosting of the morale of many Ukrainians with a corresponding decrease in the morale of the invading Russian forces.

Russian TV media only discussed the story briefly, while news articles described out-of-date fire-suppression systems and said that the sinking would not have an effect on the war. However, film director and former State Duma member Vladimir Bortko, described by the BBC as "clearly emotional", said the fate of Moskva was grounds for war.

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. If the Ukrainian account is proven correct then it raises questions about the vulnerability of surface ships against missiles, particularly for China and the US should war over Taiwan occur.

See also

• Sinking of ARA General Belgrano
• Sinking of HMS Sheffield