The loss of the missile cruiser Moskva will significantly undercut the Kremlin’s ability to operate freely in the Black Sea, and make Russian Federation (RF) warships more vulnerable to air attacks, Ukrainian and international military observers said on Friday, April 15.
Roman Tsymbaliuk, an UNIAN news agency correspondent with long experience in Russia, in a morning blog pointed to probable serious damage to RF sailor morale because only a small portion of the estimated 510 sailors aboard Moskva appear to have been saved after abandoning ship, following the strike of a pair of UAF cruise missiles.
According to Tsymbaliuk and other Ukrainian naval news reports, as of Monday morning RF rescue teams had transported 15 Moskva sailors to the RF Black Sea Fleet head’s flagship headquarters in Sevastopol, but high waves and severe storm conditions were hampering RF fleet attempts to locate and save other survivors.
A Ukraine government website called “Ishchi Svoikh”, operated as a resource for RF citizens looking for information about RF service personnel captured or killed in the Ukraine war, on Thursday evening published lists indicating that as many as 300 men assigned to the Moskva may have lost their lives.
The probable heavy loss of sailors’ lives, combined with the shock that Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) units are capable of destroying the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship and largest surface combatant, will undermine officer sailor confidence both in their weapons systems and in the Russian navy’s ability to handle future UAF attacks, Tsymbaliuk said.
Odesa naval journalist Volodymyr Seleznev in a Monday analysis pointed to the Moskva’s sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles and radars that are now lost to the Black Sea Fleet, making other warships more vulnerable to renewed attacks by anti-ship missiles, and potentially strikes by UAF aircraft.
As the fleet flagship, the Moskva had advanced communications equipment and staff facilities to support its other main function: to serve as the fleet’s dedicated at-sea headquarters, likewise permanently lost to RF forces, Seleznev said.
A Friday morning estimate released by the British Ministry of Defense confirmed that the Moskva’s primary fleet roles were air defense and command and control, and that the warship’s loss would degrade RF fleet capacity in these two key areas.
Ukrainian military media on Tuesday, citing multiple but unnamed UAF naval sources, reported that a key to the successful attack on the Moskva was the UAF’s employment of a military bait-and-switch tactic, using UAF strike drones to draw the Moskva’s radar operators’ attention away from a pair of approaching Neptune anti-ship missiles.
Ukraine’s air force thus far in the war has made, per official and news agency reports, practically no effort to attack RF warships. The small number of warships Ukraine’s navy have remained bottled up in port or been sunk since RF invasion of Ukraine on 24 Feb.
RF officials sources to date have not acknowledged UAF missiles sank the Moskva. According to the Kremlin, an as-yet unexplained ammunition explosion crippled the ship, which sank hours later while under tow.
RF state television on Thursday evening aired political talk shows during which participants condemned the Moskva’s sinking and called for both house-cleaning within the Black Sea Fleet command and – the RF navy narrative that the Moskva’s sinking may have been an accident notwithstanding – retribution against Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Espresso news agency on Thursday evening reported RF Admiral Igor Osipov, commander of the RF Black Sea Fleet, was arrested in the wake of the Moskva’s sinking. Other Ukrainian news agencies repeated the report but there was no independent confirmation.
KP contributor Ugo Poletti, editor of the Odessa Journal, reported that regional authorities on Thursday ordered a maximum alert, and warned of possible RF missile attacks in retaliation for the Moskva’s sinking.
