The images show the Moskva list on one side, with black holes from possible missile puncture marks and significant scars on the waterline and just above the waterline in the harbor (left) in the middle of the boat. A large cloud of black smoke appears to be rising upwards, partially hiding the front of the wounded ship. Analysts who spoke to CNN confirmed that the warship in the images looked like the Moskva, a Slava-class guided missile destroyer and the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine and Russia have made conflicting reports about what happened in Thursday’s Black Sea incident. Moscow has denied the Ukrainian version of events – that the Moskva sank after being hit by Ukrainian missiles – but acknowledged that the ship sank. Russia insisted the cause of the sinking was a fire, but the United States confirmed Ukraine’s account on Friday, with a senior defense official saying the United States believed two Ukrainian Neptune missiles had hit the Russian warship. Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the Joint Pacific Command Information Center, told CNN on Monday that his assessment was that the missiles had penetrated under the ship’s deck and exploded. “Assuming the photo is not falsified in any way or has not been made photographic, it appears that the rocket or rockets were fired forward, which is not unexpected,” he said. “Anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) tend to go to the radar return center, which is usually the front of the superstructure.” HI Sutton, an independent defense analyst and author, told CNN that the damage to the photos “does not rule out a missile strike and remains a possible cause.” “Possible puncture marks on the side of the hull are visible below the point of fire. But these would need to be examined more closely to confirm if they were caused by rockets or just fire damage,” he said. Moskva was armed with a range of anti-aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as torpedoes, naval firearms and missile defense systems, which meant it would have large quantities of explosives. The Russian military has not released any reports of casualties in Moscow. Russia’s Defense Ministry released a video on Saturday showing officers and sailors on the sunken warship standing in a two-row formation. The number of sailors in formation was not clear. It was not clear how many crew members boarded the ship or how many survived. Sutton says the images show that all the lifeboats have been deployed. he said. . A large Russian rescue tug can be seen flooding the warship with water on the far side. The Kremlin said Monday that it had seen the photos of Moscow but could not verify them. “Yes, we really saw the video, but we can not say how authentic and true it is,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peshkov. A senior U.S. defense official, who said they had also seen the photos and video of the shipwreck, told CNN on Monday that the United States “could not independently verify these images.” “But the images themselves agree with what we estimated was the damage to the ship,” the official said. The photographers of the images and video are unknown, but they were taken from a boat near the wounded warship. In the short video taken from the same advantage, a voice is heard from an invisible person shouting in Russian: “F ** k (can not be heard) what did you do!” Moskva was one of Russia’s most visible advantages in the Ukraine war, and its loss could affect the morale of Russian troops. Undoubtedly, the Russian government has not identified any victims of the sinking of the ship, a stark contrast to the very public debate over the destruction of the Kursk submarine, which claimed the lives of 118 sailors in 2000. Analysts say the loss of the warship would have struck a chord with the Russian navy as well as national pride, comparable to the US Navy that lost a warship during World War II or an aircraft carrier today. “Only the loss of a submarine-launched ballistic missile or Kutznetsov (Russia’s only aircraft carrier) would deal a serious blow to Russian morale and the navy’s reputation to the Russian public,” Schuster said.
