CNN)One of the Russian Navy's most vital battleships is either drifting abandoned or at the bottom of the Black Sea, a massive setback to a navy fighting Ukrainian opposition 50 days after Vladimir Putin's invasion.
According to Russian official media, the guided-missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea navy, was evacuated after a fire aboard detonated weapons.
The Moskva was severely damaged in the event, according to state media outlets TASS and RIA, quoting the Russian Defense Ministry. The cause of the fire is being probed. There was no mention of possible casualties in Russian reports.
However, a Ukrainian official claimed the Russian cruiser was damaged by cruise missiles fired from Ukraine just hours earlier.CNN has not been able to visually confirm the ship has been hit or its present position due to strong storms over the Black Sea obscuring satellite imaging and sensory satellite data, but analysts cautioned that a fire on board such a ship may result in a catastrophic explosion, sinking it.
Whatever the cause of the fire, observers say it has a significant impact on the Russian military as well as national pride, similar to the US Navy losing a battleship during WWII or an aircraft carrier today.
"Only the loss of a ballistic missile submarine or the Kutznetsov (Russia's lone aircraft carrier) would deal a more serious blow to Russian morale and the navy's reputation with the Russian public," said Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the Joint Intelligence Center of the US Pacific Command.On April 7, the Russian Navy ship Moskva is spotted in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Losing the battleship would be a "huge loss" for Russia, according to Alessio Patalano, a military and strategy expert at King's College in London.
"Ships operate in the shadows, and their operations are rarely reported on in the media. However, they are big floating pieces of national territory, and when one is lost, particularly a flagship, the political and symbolic message shines out exactly because of it, in addition to the military loss "He expressed himself.
The 611-foot-long (186-meter) Moskva is the pride of the Russian Black Sea naval fleet, with a crew of about 500. According to the website Naval-Technology.com, the Moskva was commissioned into the Soviet navy in the 1980s as the Slava, renamed Moskva in 1995, and reentered duty in 1998 following a refurbishment.
The Moskva is equipped with anti-ship and anti-air missiles, torpedoes, naval guns, and close-in missile defense systems.
All of this equates to a significant amount of explosive ordnance in the ammunition magazines. According to Schuster, if a fire had approached them, the crew would have had few alternatives for dealing with the threat."You have two options when a fire approaches your ammunition magazine(s): 1) flood them, or 2) abandon ship," Schuster explained. "Otherwise, the devastating explosion that follows a conflagration involving several hundred tons of munitions will obliterate your crew."
Ukrainian army utilized Neptune cruise missiles to assault the Moskva, according to Odesa state regional administrator Maxim Marchenko, who stated this in a Telegram post. According to Schuster, if this is accurate, the Moskva would be the largest battleship ever disabled by a missile.
For Kyiv's forces, such a victory would be a significant victory.
The Neptune is a Ukrainian weapon based on the Soviet KH-35 cruise missile that was developed in the country. According to Ukrainian media accounts, it only recently became operational in Ukrainian military.According to a statement on the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) website from Lt. Cmdr. Jason Lancaster, a US Navy surface warfare officer, if the Neptune was used to attack the Moskva, it would be the first known usage of the ship during the war.
The threat provided by mobile shore-based cruise missiles such as the Neptune "changes operational behavior" of an enemy, according to his post for the CIMSEC on Tuesday.
According to Lancaster, Russian ships will "act in ways that reduce the risk of detection while maximizing their odds of defending themselves." "Russia's capacity to use its fleet to its advantage is hampered by these behavioral shifts. The increased stress of a quick battle might cause weariness and blunders.""It appears the Russians have learned that the hard way today," Patalano, the war professor, said.
Lancaster writes on CIMSEC that during the 1982 Falklands War, Argentina fired missiles at the British Royal Navy, killing many ships.
Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, a former US Navy ship equal in size to the Moskva, was sunk by a British submarine during that conflict.According to Oleksiy Arestovych, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Moskva holds symbolic value for Ukraine because it was one of the ships involved in the memorable exchange at Snake Island in February.
As the Russians approached the Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island, also known as Zmiinyi Island, in the Black Sea, according to an alleged audio exchange from late February, a Russian officer said: "It's a cruiser for the military. A Russian military warship is pictured here. To minimize unnecessary bloodshed and losses, I propose you lay down your weapons and surrender. You'll get bombed if you don't."
"Russian ships, go f*** yourself," a Ukrainian soldier responded.The Moskva would be the second large-scale Russian naval vessel to be lost during Moscow's battle with Ukraine if it sinks.
Ukraine claimed in late March that a missile strike at the port of Berdiansk had damaged a Russian landing ship.
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