Although Russia’s official position is that Moscow went to the bottom of the Black Sea after an accidental fire on board, the sinking of the warship has prompted Kremlin propaganda to shout revenge against Ukraine and Russia’s military leadership, promising to step up missile attacks against the Ukrainians. cities
Early Friday morning, Russia fired cruise missiles at a Ukrainian arms plant in Kyiv, according to its defense ministry.
Other parts of southern Ukraine were also hit overnight by Russian cruise missiles.
Ukrainian commanders claim to have sunk the cruiser Moscow, the pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, by firing two Neptune anti-ship missiles at it.
Neptune was designed and manufactured in Ukraine, but it is not known whether the factory, which was hit on Friday morning, is the site where the rockets were made.
The Russian coat of arms, the double-headed eagle, is seen on the cover of the rocket cruiser Moscow in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol on September 16, 2008 (Denis Sinyakov / Reuters)
The Russian story is that a fire broke out aboard the Moscow – by accident – and that the ship sank while being towed to the Russian-controlled port of Sevastopol, Crimea.
So far, there are no videos or satellite images or accounts of survivors to support the history of the two countries.
In any case, the leadership of Ukraine claims a great victory.
“This is an extremely important military event and the biggest defeat of the Russian navy since World War II,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Alexei Arestovich wrote on social media.
WATCH Ukraine claims missile attack on key Russian warship hit Moscow:
Ukraine says a missile attack on a key Russian warship is a blow to Moscow
Russia’s flagship in its Black Sea Fleet – “Moscow” – was destroyed by two Ukrainian missiles, according to the Ukrainian army. The damage dealt a severe blow to the Russian navy, reducing its ability to launch a landing attack. 2:21
“Ammunition was detonated aboard this cruiser, which underscores this [it] was loaded with ammunition to continue destroying the Ukrainian [cities]”Said Natalia Humeniuk, media spokeswoman for the Southern Military District of Ukraine.
The Moscow was not only the largest and most powerful ship in the Black Sea, but also served as Russia’s command headquarters for all its naval operations in the region.
There were usually about 500 sailors on board, and it is unclear how many survived the accident.
“We saw other ships trying to help the cruiser,” Humeniuk said, “but there was a storm at sea and that didn’t allow them to carry out the rescue operation.”
A man holds postage stamps depicting a Ukrainian serviceman and the Russian warship Moscow at the Ukrainian Post Office in Kyiv on Thursday. (Valentin Ogirenko / Reuters)
A member of Ukraine’s interior ministry was quoted as saying by Gazeta on Friday that only 58 people had been pulled out of the water, with the ship’s captain among the victims.
Moscow has played a number of roles along the Ukrainian coast, in particular using its extensive anti-aircraft systems to protect Russian troops on shore, as well as other ships nearby.
He had also fired at targets near the city of Odessa and would be a key part of any potential invasion of the city.
Without the ship, Russia’s naval capabilities have been severely weakened, experts say.
“What [Russia] can’t do so easily now, is to bombard the Ukrainian coast with artillery fire, blockade or threaten a landing attack the way they did before, “said Siddhartha Kaushal, a naval warfare expert at the British Royal United Institute for United services, considers defense – a reservoir.
If the Neptune missile – or two such missiles, Ukrainians claim – destroyed Moscow, it would be a remarkable success for Ukrainian military planners, given how strongly the cruiser would be protected from its anti-missile systems and radar. .
A destroyed Russian armored personnel carrier is seen in the village of Husarivka in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters)
Kaushal said open source information showed the cruiser followed a “predictable” pattern of movement relatively close to Ukraine’s coastline in the days before it sank, meaning Ukraine may have been able to use a drone to determine visually its location and aim the missiles, although the weather at that time was bad.
“Perhaps most interestingly, the Ukrainians were able to track down Moscow to maintain the accuracy of their missiles – which speaks volumes about their intelligence and intelligence capabilities,” he told CBC News.
Neptune, although a model of an anti-ship rocket from an earlier Soviet era, was brand new and had just come into service.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is chairing a meeting for the country’s oil and gas industry with representatives of Russian energy companies and officials via video link at a residence outside Moscow on Thursday. (Mikhail Klimentiev / Reuters)
Ukraine would have very few such missiles, and given the difficulty of targeting Moscow because of its strong defenses, there were also very few opportunities to fire them.
“Probably the missile they used – or the battery they used – was originally intended for training purposes and was reassigned to active combat at the last minute,” Caushal said.
Kaushal said another theory was that the Russian ship may have struck a mine, but again there is very little independent evidence to continue.
There was hardly a greater symbolic goal for the Ukrainian military.
In the early days of the war, Moscow sank into the collective Ukrainian consciousness when its captain clashed with a group of Ukrainian soldiers on a small island off the coast of Odessa and ordered them to surrender.
The soldiers’ response: “Russian warship, go to hell” became a slogan that was written on Ukrainian buildings, on military uniforms and just this week, also on a Ukrainian postage stamp.
The side of a building in Lviv, Ukraine, is painted with a crude slogan aimed at a Russian warship. (Chris Brown / CBC)
Russia disputes this version of events and claims that the soldiers simply surrendered.
But while Russian military operations in the southern region of Ukraine could suffer without the ship, it is unlikely to affect Russia’s broader military goals or strategy, said Maxim Palamarchuk, an analyst at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies.
“It will be just a [small] change in their great strategy, “he told CBC News in an interview with Kyiv.
Russian forces are currently gathering in the eastern Donbass, preparing for what appears to be a major new offensive to seize territory in the region.
Palamarchuk said Russian forces would have to compensate for the loss of anti-missile coverage in the area around Kherson, but he did not expect this to significantly affect the timing of the offensive.
President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 25, calling it a “special military operation” and banning any mention of the conflict as a “war.”
In the hours after news broke on Thursday that the ship had been severely damaged, Russian state television broadcasts seemed controversial on how to deal with the loss.
Some experts in the 60-minute talk show seem to have indirectly rejected the idea that Russia’s incompetence could have led to the crash and blamed Ukraine instead.
“The warship Moscow is the absolute cause of the war,” said Russian director Vladimir Borto, a participant in the discussion.
Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has already become what could easily be called World War III, said host Olga Skabeeva, who raised the question of whether Russia should fully mobilize its society for military efforts, including recruiting more soldiers.
Palamarchuk, a Ukrainian naval analyst, said he believed Ukraine was taking little risk by launching bold attacks such as the possible one against Moscow, as Russia’s ability to escalate the war was limited.
“If we see the number of troops already engaged, it is difficult to escalate more,” he said.
“The rhetoric is that they give the impression that they are strong, that they are ready to fight more. But it is difficult to force people who do not want to fight. [Whereas] Ukrainians have no choice. ”
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