Thread by @jon96179496

The Kremlin says that the Moskva cruiser has been fully evacuated as the result of a “fire” on board.

“The causes of the fire are being established,”

- Russian Defense Ministry

This comes after Ukraine says they hit the ship with Neptune missiles

A fire likely was caused by the Neptune missiles. We also have visual confirmation of rescue boats being called to rescue the 500 people onboard

Russian confirmation:

https://twitter.com/rianru/status/1514378797096873989

Full quote from Russian MoD
“The Moscva was seriously damaged, the crew was completely evacuated. Ammunition exploded. The cause of the fire is under investigation”.

Russian rescue ships & radio transmissions don’t seem to support the crew being fully evacuated. Seems like spin.

Here’s the SOS in Morse code they issued approximately at 1:05am local time:

https://twitter.com/Trumenko/status/1514361841094467586/video/1

Russian claim of an ammo explosion leaves out the prospect of 2 Neptune strikes, which would cause fires & secondary explosions. Abandoning a ship is an extreme measure & usually only happens when damage control measures are unavailable so only option is abandoning a vital ship

One thing that makes this attack impressive is that if Neptune missiles are confirmed to be used in the attack, they were manufactured in Ukraine & were only available to the forces in the last 2 weeks.
So in less than 2 weeks they managed to hit the flagship Russian cruiser.

Officially Activated in the first week of April kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi…

While unconfirmed at this stage, sources indicate:

There were multiple explosions heard on Moskva & a fire followed. Power was lost immediately. Some evacuations were done but were hampered due to bad weather (27km/h winds & 2 meter waves). The Moskva capsized on the port side.

A flagship cruiser like the Moskva by all accounts should’ve been able to defend itself against 2 Neptunes. It reportedly has OSA-M & S-300F missiles, along with AK-630 CIWS. The fact that these measures don’t seem to have worked illustrate far larger problems for Russian forces.

According to additional reports, Ukraine flew a TB2 UCAV towards the Moskva cruiser to distract the ship while it was targeted by the 2 Neptune strikes between Odessa & Nikolaev. The ship after being struck rolled onto its side.

Due to the blockade of ships entering the Bosporus by Turkey (Montreux Convention). Russia can’t replace any losses of ships from Black Sea Fleet with other Russian Navy vessels. Losses and the Moskva flagship in particular will be especially damaging for their naval capabilities

Russia still has naval capabilities available but further erosion of them could change the dimension of the war, as it would open up areas for Ukraine to take advantage & enable more airpower to be exerted over Black Sea. Also it could enable Ukraine to reopen ports & resupply.

Ukrainian forces seemingly had a very well planned strategy to destroy the Moskva cruiser. They planned to distract the ship with a TB2 drone before shooting the Neptune missiles.They practiced this tactic earlier in the week with a smaller ship to see reaction & response times.

https://twitter.com/StephenKolanko1/status/1514402554049929227

Something to keep in mind moving forward is the potential range of anti-ship Neptune missiles, the 280km range can enable Ukraine to launch missiles even further out and Russian defensive capabilities are likely to be considerably weaker on many of the other naval vessels

One interesting historical tidbit is this would be the first sunk Russian Cruiser since 1941.

The US today announced they will begin sharing intelligence on Russian units in Crimea which comes at a rather timely moment to seize the advantage

https://twitter.com/wsj/status/1514426990434127873

A number of Russian citizens are not responding well to the news about the sinking of the Moskva.

As others have pointed out, the loss of their flagship Cruiser Moskva is an extreme humiliation for many Russians and particularly for the Kremlin. Suffice it to say we should expect a brutal escalation from Russia shortly to counter the narrative and rectify their bruised egos.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reports the Moskva was sunk while being towed.

From other reports it seems 14 soldiers were saved by Russian forces and 54 by Turkey leaving a total of 68 accounted for with 442 Russians missing in the invasion of Ukraine

US finally confirms Moskva was sunk as a result of the Ukrainian attack

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…