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Ukraine says it has hit Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea in a missile attack

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Controversial allegations about what happened to a key Russian warship circulated early Thursday, with some Ukrainians claiming a rocket attack sank the ship, but the Kremlin only said it had suffered significant fire damage.

But whatever happened to Russia’s naval missile cruiser Moscow, the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, the episode served as a significant morale boost to besieged Ukrainian forces and a serious blow to Russia, military experts said.

Late Wednesday, Odessa regional administrator Maxim Marchenko said Ukraine’s Neptune anti-ship cruise missile had hit Moscow, causing severe damage. Hours later, Russia’s defense ministry acknowledged that a key ship in its Black Sea fleet had suffered significant damage, but did not respond to Ukrainian claims.

Instead, the Russians said they would investigate what caused the damage and blamed the failure on a fire that blew up the ship’s ammunition. All of the ship’s about 500 crew members have been evacuated to other Black Sea Fleet ships in the area, Russia said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry later said that “the fire on the cruiser” Moscow “has been localized” and that “the explosions of ammunition have been stopped,” RIA Novosti reported. It says the ship maintains “buoyancy” and that “its main missile armament” has not been damaged. The ministry added that efforts were being made to “tow the cruiser to the port” and that the cause of the fire was being investigated, RIA Novosti reported.

Ukraine said in an update that “Moscow” was “severely damaged” by the Neptune rocket, which caused the fire. “Other parts of the ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink,” the Ukrainian military said.

In addition to the confusion, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN that senior Ukrainian officials are not sure what the truth is. “Either two sailors were smoking in the wrong place, or certain safety measures were violated again,” said Alexei Arestovich. He later tweeted that the ship had “drowned”.

Early Thursday, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technology, a Moscow-based think tank, told its Telegram channel that it believed the ship had sunk and sided with the Ukrainian assessment. “The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moscow, was indeed attacked by the Neptune anti-ship missiles from the coastline between Odessa and Nikolaev,” the statement said. The drone distracted the ship before the missiles struck, the statement said.

If the 12,000-ton Moscow falls, it will be the largest naval sinking of a naval ship since World War II.

The Washington Post could not independently verify the allegations.

“Moscow is not of great strategic value, but as a flagship of the Black Sea it has symbolic significance,” said Artyom Lukin, a professor of international relations at the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.

The ship was named after the Russian capital and was at the center of a widespread attack on Snake Island when Ukrainian border guards drew worldwide attention for insulting Russian troops in the early days of the invasion.

On the Ukrainian Snake Island, a provocative last fight against Russian forces

“The loss of not only a major surface fighter in the Russian navy, but also the naval flagship, would be a greater psychological blow to the Russians,” said Colin Co., a maritime security expert at Nanyang University of Technology in Singapore.

The idea that Ukrainian missiles hit Moscow reinforces “the image of hardened resistance from Ukrainians” and sows “more doubt in the minds of Russian servicemen, especially sailors serving on Russian warships off Ukraine’s southern coast,” he added.