The missile cruiser Moskva (Moscow), flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, has sunk this Thursday, as confirmed by the Russian Defense Ministry. The sinking occurred “while she was being towed in a stormy sea” and after she suffered an explosion on board on Wednesday night, according to Moscow. Ukraine claims that the damage to the boat was the result of an attack by its troops.

“The ship lost its stability due to the damage suffered by the hull after a fire caused by the detonation of ammunition,” said the official note from the Russian Defense Ministry, quoted by the Interfax agency. According to Moscow, the ship, with a crew of around 500 people, had managed to be evacuated. In mid-afternoon, Spanish time, sources from the US Department of Defense cited by Reuters pointed out that there was a fire on the ship, and that she was being towed to Sevastopol (on the Crimean peninsula), but that she was still afloat. . Shortly after, they confirmed the sinking of the ship in what is a new setback for the Russian Navy, which already lost Andrei Palii, the deputy head of the Black Sea Fleet, a month ago.

The ship used to make headlines in the Russian press under the nickname “aircraft carrier killer.” A simple change, of course, to go to the Mediterranean was already a reason to write a few lines about the ship, which in 2015 fulfilled the relevant mission of protecting Russian aviation in Latakia, Syria, after the shooting down of a plane by Turkey. Now he was assigned another key task: to support the Russian troops in the invasion of Ukraine. “As a result of a fire, the ammunition exploded. The ship was seriously damaged and the crew was completely evacuated,” the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday night, as soon as the event occurred. Shortly before, the governor of the Ukrainian region of Odesa, Maksim Marchenko, announced that the ship had been attacked with “Neptun” (Neptune) missiles. Moscow has offered some more details this Thursday: “The cruiser retains its buoyancy, measures are being taken to tow it to port,” the Kremlin said hours before losing the ship and mentioning the cause of the fire, which, according to Moscow, had yet to be clarified.

The Moskva is part of the 1164 Atlant series of missile cruisers, known to NATO as the Slava class. The ship, launched in 1979, “combines her speed and range with high maneuverability, and is capable of operating in remote areas of the oceans,” according to experts consulted by the Russian news agency Interfax. In addition, their weapons make these ships hedgehogs against any threat: their arsenal includes 16 P-1000 Vulkán supersonic anti-ship missiles, whose radius of action reaches 800 kilometers; S-300 anti-aircraft defense systems, equivalent to the American Patriots, and anti-submarine batteries.

This ship was chosen to test the supersonic missile for the first time almost a year ago, on April 30, 2021. The cruise ship fired the rocket “to the other end of the Black Sea” and a drone captured the destruction of the target 100 seconds later, according to the coverage made by Zvezdá, the official network of the Ministry of Defense. “These missiles are why they call our cruiser an ‘aircraft carrier killer,’” the channel gleefully said during the launch.

Pride of the Russian Navy

Historically, the Black Sea Fleet is the pride of the Russian Navy. Tsarina Catherine II, Catherine the Great, ordered Admiral Grigory Potemkin to create it after the conquest of Crimea at the end of the 18th century. The strategic base of Sevastopol was then established, which in 2014 returned to Russian hands after the annexation, not internationally recognized, of the Crimean peninsula. His deeds against the Turkish and Napoleonic armies have been reflected in the paintings of one of the most important Russian romantic painters, Iván Aivazovsky, and long after, the revolt of the battleship Potemkin after the defeat in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 would ignite the wick of a revolutionary century.

Before the Ukraine war, his most prominent role was protecting Russian aviation in Syria. In November 2015, at the start of the campaign in the Mediterranean country, a Turkish fighter shot down a Russian Su-24 on the border with Syria, and one of its occupants was shot dead in a rebel zone. As a result of that event, Moscow sent the Moskva cruiser to act as a protective umbrella in Latakia. “Any target that represents a potential danger to us will be destroyed,” Deputy Defense Minister Sergei Rudskói warned at the time.

Seven years later, the cruiser has led Russian maritime operations against Ukraine, including shelling it on land with its missiles. At the beginning of the offensive, he also participated in the seizure of the Serpent Island, an episode that gained notoriety due to the broadcast of some audios where the Ukrainian border guards answered the order to surrender abruptly, before being arrested. “Russian warship: screw you,” answered the soldier Roman Gríbov, who was awarded by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after his recent release.

The damage to the Moskva marks the third severe setback suffered by the Black Sea Fleet in just two months. On March 24, the Saratov amphibious transport ship, capable of landing dozens of battle tanks and hundreds of soldiers, was destroyed in the port of Berdiansk. And in early March, the deputy commander of the fleet, Captain First Rank Andrei Palii, was killed in action. This high command had been entrusted with opening a humanitarian corridor in the port city of Mariupol and, according to the Kyiv version, he was killed by a sniper.

Born eight years before the Moskva was launched, during his extensive career Palii also played a key role in Syria as deputy head of the Russian Armed Forces there. His death, like the damage suffered by his flagship on Wednesday, has overshadowed the Kremlin’s message that it is an extremely cautious campaign to avoid unnecessary losses: the explosions of the Moskva have left the background just a day after the supposed surrender of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in the besieged city of Mariupol broadcast by the Russian media.