The government in Kyiv announced that it destroyed the giant missile cruiser during a combat operation against Russian ships in the Black Sea on Wednesday. The ship’s ammunition deck exploded after being hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles, the government said. According to Lithuanian Foreign Minister Arvydas Anusauskas, the cruiser sent an emergency call. At 1.14 a.m. local time (2314 BST) on Thursday Moscow was lying on its side and about half an hour later “turned off the electricity”, he posted on Facebook. As of 02:00 a Turkish ship managed to save 54 sailors. An hour later, Turkey and Romania confirmed that the ship had “sunk completely”. Ukrainian officials said stormy weather had prevented Russian boats from evacuating, adding: “Nature was on our side.” The Kremlin did not provide details on possible casualties among Moscow’s 510 crew and did not release any photos of the damaged ship. An article published by the state-run Tass news agency initially claimed that “the entire crew” had been evacuated. It was later modified to remove the word “whole”. An unconfirmed Ukrainian report said 14 sailors, including the head of Moscow’s medical service, had been transferred to the Crimean port of Sevastopol. The fate of the other 494 was unknown, he said. If confirmed to have been drowned, it would amount to the largest number of Russian military deaths in a single incident since World War II. Pavel Gerastshenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, which has a popular Telegram channel, posted a photo of Moscow captain Anton Kuprin. Kuprin was killed during the explosion and fire on the ship, Gerastshenko claimed. Anton Kuprin, the captain of Moskva. Photo: Twitter It was Cooprin who ordered Moskva to bomb Snake Island in the Black Sea during the first hours of the Moscow invasion. His Ukrainian defenders refused to surrender, saying: “Russian warship ‘go fuck yourself’” – a slogan that has become a national meme. The Ukrainians celebrated the loss of the ship on Friday. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov trolled his Russian counterparts by posting a photo of a diver and a huge turtle on Twitter. “A ‘flagship’ of a Russian warship is a worthy diving site,” he wrote, adding: “It will definitely visit the wreck after our victory in the war.” A “flagship” Russian warship is a worthy diving site. We have another diving spot in the Black Sea now. I will definitely visit the wreck after our victory in the war. BTW, I already have 300 dives pic.twitter.com/q2Buc51qeI – Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) April 15, 2022 Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern security and defense forces, said the sinking had dealt a blow to Vladimir Putin’s “imperial ambitions”. He added: “We understand that the attacks will increase. The enemy will try to counterattack. “It will increase rockets and artillery bombardment.” Russia has said it is investigating what caused the sinking of Moskva. The Ministry of Defense has promised to bomb targets in Kyiv in response to what he called “terrorist and sabotage” attacks on its territory carried out by the “nationalist regime” of Ukraine. On Friday, Moscow announced that it had hit a factory that manufactures and repairs Ukrainian missiles, including anti-ship missiles, on the outskirts of the city. Ukraine is fighting on Friday On Russian television, the hosts and experts came dangerously close to admitting that the loss of the cruiser was the result of a hostile attack as opposed to the result of an accident on the ship. They also spoke in strong terms about the elimination of “Ukraine”. “The fact that there is an attack on our territory is a casus belli, the absolute cause of war. “A real war, without nonsense,” said Russian director and former lawmaker Vladimir Bortko on the popular state-run 60 Minutes show. The special operation, as he was reminded of what is called the Russian war, “ended tonight”. When asked if he was talking about Moskva, he said: “The Moscow cruiser is absolutely the cause of war. One hundred percent. It is our flagship. There is nothing to think about. We need an answer. “ In the Telegram, prominent Russian officials tried to reduce the loss of a ship estimated by Forbes to $ 750 million (5 575 million). “The Moscow cruiser is one year older than me,” wrote Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-run RT propaganda channel. Andrei Medvedev, a member of the Moscow city parliament and a Russian state news reporter, paraphrased Russian Imperial General Mikhail Kutuzov, writing: “His loss [the] “Moscow does not mean that Russia is lost.” In a lengthy post, he told his 70,000 Telegram subscribers that the cruiser may indeed have been hit by a NATO-assisted missile and that the incident should be investigated. “We are not fighting Ukraine, but NATO,” he wrote. “The strikes against our forces are being carried out with the help of NATO systems. And often with their weapons. ” Like others, he added that the ship was old. “Moskva, with all due respect, was not a young cruiser,” he wrote. Ukraine says it has destroyed or sunk eight Russian ships and boats, reducing Russia’s ability to attack southern Ukraine and the port of Odessa. He said about 20,000 Russian soldiers and officers had been killed since Putin’s military operation began on February 24. In a briefing on Friday, the UK Department of Defense said Moskva “played a key role as a command vessel and air defense hub”. Moscow is now likely to reconsider its “maritime stance” on the Black Sea, he said. The Soviet-era boat had undergone extensive repairs and returned to service only last year, he added. The last time Russia lost its flagship was in 1904, when the imperial ship Petropavlovsk sank in the tsarist war with Japan. Ukrainian officials acknowledge that the collapse of Moscow does not mean that Russia has been defeated. But they see it as a signpost. Russia, meanwhile, has used Tupolev long-range bombers for the first time to attack the besieged port of Mariupol, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said on Friday. Russia had not been able to take full control of the port city, he added, despite a six-week siege.
