Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ THE SINKING OF MOSKVA, PART 5: In this penultimate thread on the sinking of the Russian missile cruiser Moskva on 13-14 April 2022, we'll look at how Moskva was nearly decommissioned because of her poor condition before being reactivated in time for the invasion of Ukraine. ⬇️

2/ For part 1, describing events leading up to the missile strikes, see the thread below.

3/ Part 2 describes how the crew tried to save the ship after two Ukrainian Neptune missiles struck it at 14:20 on 13 April:

4/ Part 3 describes the ship's final hours on 14 April, and the immediate aftermath:

5/ Part 4, evaluating lessons and conclusions from the sinking, is here:

6/ Prior to the war in Ukraine, Moskva had faced an uncertain future. She had been designed as a Cold War carrier-killer, armed with 16 huge Vulkan P-1000 anti-ship missiles, but her secondary role was to provide air defence with her S-300F Fort anti-aircraft missiles.

7/ In September 2015, Moskva sailed through the Bosphorus Strait to take up station in the eastern Mediterranean, where she provided air defence cover for the Russian Air Force's Khmeimim air base in Syria until January 2016.

8/ On returning to Russia, Moskva was due for a refit and upgrade but due to lack of funds her future became uncertain. She remained at anchor in Sevastopol for most of the following four years with a skeleton crew of 64 men on board (rather than the usual 500+).

9/ According to a dossier compiled by Dmitry Skrebets, the father of a conscript sailor who died in the April 2022 sinking, the ship was used as a floating barracks under the command of a Guard Captain (equivalent to between a NATO lieutenant or major).

10/ As Skhrebets puts it, "Conscripts were housed there, they lived in quarters, marched around the parade ground, learned to stand watch, and did cleaning." It looked likely that the ship, which was already 37 years old at that time and in a poor condition, would be scrapped.

11/ However, Shkrebets says, Moskva was reactivated for political reasons. As the Russian Navy's only ship of the first line in the Black Sea, it was the only ship there that could qualify as a flagship. Without a flagship, the Black Sea Fleet would be downgraded to a flotilla.

12/ By then, Moskva's condition had deteriorated severely. "At that time, the decks on the cruiser Moskva had rotted so much in some places that the dough mixing apparatus (250 liters) fell through the deck onto the generator (this fact was passed on from call to call)."

13/ "And some transformers (approximately 700 kg each) were practically hanging on power cables. They were propped up with improvised means so that when the sea was rough they would not be torn off and injure anyone."

14/ On 5 June 2019, Moskva left the port of Sevastopol in the Black Sea to test her combat systems and main propulsion. A year later, on 9 June 2020, Captain 1st Rank Anton Valerievich Kuprin was appointed as the ship's captain to oversea the ship's restoration.

15/ Money had been found to fix the essentials, like the screws, shaft lines, gears and generator, but not to fully repair or upgrade the weapons systems or radars. These remained in a fragile state even as late as February 2022.

16/ Shkrebets writes: "For example: the OSA air defence missile systems on the left and right sides were undergoing modernisation, but the contract for modernisation was not completed in full. They were only partially operational."

17/ "One of the two radar stations had been suspended with cables since 2006 to prevent it from wobbling and [was] welded in place ... On the other – of the two channels, one was semi-working, without gyrostabilisation, with major limitations."

18/ This state of disrepair was very likely a factor in Moskva only detecting the incoming Ukrainian Neptune missiles when they were just 4 km, and a few seconds' flying time, away from the ship.

19/ Moskva was formally reinstated as a ship of the first line on 1 October 2021, by order of the commander of the 11th Anti-Submarine Ship Brigade. The ship was part of this unit, which had been formed on 1 June 1970, consisting of a command, brigade headquarters and six ships.

20/ By this time, preparations for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine were well underway. Russian forces had begun massing in Belarus and on the Russian border from the start of October, so Moskva's hasty reinstatement was almost certainly linked to this effort.

21/ Between 1 December 2021 and 10 February 2022, Moskva was put through K-1 and K-2 exercises intended to develop crew readiness. K-1 exercises are conducted within the naval base, K-2 exercises are performed at sea. However, the K-2 exercises were cut short by the invasion.

22/ Likely to support preparations on other ships, around 100 professional sailors were taken from Moskva's crew (possibly in January 2022 – Shkrebets does not specify) and were replaced with 86 conscript sailors taken from the patrol ships Ladny and Pytlivy.

23/ These men were, of course, untrained in Moskva's systems and emergency drills. The official list of those who died in the April 2022 missile attack indicates that most of the dead were conscripts. Their lack of training likely contributed to their deaths.

24/ A final exercise was carried out off Feodosia on 8 February 2022 before being terminated only two days later on 10 February. Shkrebets says they were overseen by the fleet's division commander, who was also the combat group commander at the time.

25/ At the premature end of the exercise, Captain Kuprin wrote a "Reference Report on the Status of the Guided Missile Cruiser 'Moskva'" which concluded that Moskva still had many very serious defects. Despite this, her condition was rated 'satisfactory'.

26/ This was clearly a politically motivated judgement by the Black Sea Fleet command rather than reflecting the alarming contents of Kuprin's report. On 20 February, Moskva set sail on what was to be her first wartime cruise.

27/ TO BE CONTINUED: Moskva goes to war: how Snake Island was captured, and subsequent Black Sea patrols.

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@1Truthkeeper Actually on second thoughts, having re-listened to it I wonder if it might be some kind of status code - like the police using "10-4" to mean "message received". "690" could be the Russian Navy code for "we're fucked", perhaps.