This is the Russian Flagship #Moskva before she sank. It's impossible to fully assess the situation aboard based on one picture but marine salvage masters must make assumptions based on little information. As a ship captain and ship fire author here's what appears to be likely🧵
The first question any salvage expert will ask is how close is she to sinking. The red line on this photo shows the approximate location of the new waterline. As you can see by comparing the photos she has lost a significant amount of buoyancy and is listing to port.
She, however, is probably not in immediate danger of sinking for a few reasons: 1) She has some reserve buoyancy left because she has not reached deck edge immersion, which is the point where no freeboard is left and stability goes from bad to worse.
2) The spraying water means they have at least emergency power which could be - if the crew had enough time - set up to help dewater the ship. 3) The weather is relatively calm. If the waves picked up the danger of sinking would increase exponentially.
What else do we know?
The Lifeboats have been deployed and nobody is on deck, even back aft where it's smoke-free. Hoses are rigged to spray in the air. Those could have been rigged to help cool the ship but more likely are there to let nearby ships know when she lost power.
So it's likely been fully abandoned. It's possible that some people remain down below but staying in the engine room without proper boundary cooling and topside assistance from trained shipboard firefighters would be suicidal.
What else do we know?
The Smoke is dark and heavy. This is a serious fire with a lot of heat. Dark smoke is a result of the burning of heavy fuels or synthetic materials and incomplete combustion. It's a very hazardous situation.
We know the picture was taken relatively soon after the fire grew this large. We can assume this with some confidence because most of the grat paint is intact. Another hour under those conditions and the paint will likely peel and get covered in soot.
We know don't see any nearby ships. Professional salvage teams require a lot of heavy equipment and firefighting gear. They would likely get a tugboat to spray the forward end with fire monitors to cool the ship before boarding with fireteams. No nearby ships are cooling her.
The next question is why? There is a rescue ship nearby (that ship took this photo) Is she not equipped with fire monitors capable of shooting water outward? Or is she keeping a safe distance because there is a real danger of a secondary explosion from munitions stored aboard?
Next, we have to ask what's unusual about this photo? To me, the most striking part is the smoke is being blown forward and she has reserved buoyancy. This is a dangerous situation but the aft helideck is free of smoke and should be cool enough to work.
If this was a commercial ship the captain would likely have abandoned "non-essential" personnel and regrouped his fire teams at a "safe staging area" (likely the helideck) but this is a warship so the salvage team would have to know the location of all explosives before boarding
Finally, us captains don't care about equipment, we live and die by one rule during emergencies at sea. In an explosion of this magnitude, our job is not to save everyone but to save the highest percentage of people possible. This could lead to hard decisions.
As a commercial ship captain, the likely correct answer here is to abandon the ship knowing she would likely sink, and let insurance cover the loss.. but a Navy captain does not have that luxury.
The biggest difference between a commercial ship captain and a navy captain is that we civilians only have to worry about our own crew. Navy guys don't have that luxury. They must think about their crew and the strategic mission.
Remember the golden rule - "save as many people as possible" - well, the people a navy captain has to think about are not just the crewmembers but also the army and marines his ship provides air cover and artillery support for.
By abandoning his ship early he may save his crew but lose the war.
By most accounts, this flagship ship was critical to these war efforts. My best assumption - again based on too little evidence - is because of 1) the importance of this ship to the war effort 2) because the Montreux convention prevents Russia from sending a replacement
3) the calm weather, reserve buoyancy, and the fact she still had power means she could possibly have been saved 4) the fact the helideck was smoke-free
For these reasons my best guess is the captain of the Moskva abandoned his ship too early.
P.S. If you've read this far and want to learn more about evacuating a ship under hotter and more explosive conditions please consider reading my book amzn.to/38XY7kF
Update: looks like a salvage tug WAS alongside at the time of this photo. Good catch @MisrememberedY
UPDATE 2: A few have pointed out there is a boat, probably a salvage tug, close alongside starboard aft.
In that case, the water stream pointing aft is likely coming from the tug & means there isn’t much heat stbd aft. Salvage tug monitors (like garden hoses) have straight spray and fan spray… you would use fan spray as a shield if heat and smoke were a problem. Example:
Many older fire monitors require special pumps that can’t be turned off and on with a switch… so they are probably just spraying it aft to keep it out of the way but available if the smoke and heat shifts.
There is a *small* chance they hooked the tug pump into the ships’ main to provide water pressure to the pipe on the port side… so it’s possible the ship did lose emergency power.
It is also possible the tug is made fast and is pulling the ship astern. That might explain why the smoke is streaming fwd and away from the heli-deck. Hard to tell for certain.
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The danger isn’t new. As early as September 1753, near the end of a 2-month voyage to Virginia, Captain Thomas Francis warned of smoke in the hold of the Pearl, identifying sulfur-rich coal as the culprit. It was a harbinger of disaster to come.
By the 1860s, the scope had escalated: British and Australian Royal Commissions and reports, including one from the Salvage Association of Lloyd’s, flagged spontaneous combustion and poor ventilation as major causes of coal-cargo calamities and one of the biggest risks to ships at sea.
The Trump Administration just issued a potential death blow to the UN’s most ambitious and consequential Green initiative proposed by their powerful maritime arm @IMOHQ in London
This is a marked shift. Normally the United States ignores this body and sends a small delegation of USCG SES and relatively Jr state department diplomats over just for committee meetings.
While other nations have full time Maritime Ambassadors snd teams of delegates permanently stationed in London.
Prior the last voting session State, DHS and @JerryHendrixII’s maritime team at NSC issued a letter warning the IMO to back off extreme measures.
Measures so extreme that one proposal suggested any ship that makes “ocean sounds” be banned from entering port.
Several sources told @gCaptain that a DHS team under @Sec_Noem called for the resignation of the chief U.S. delegate to the IMO before the vote. Many were shocked when she still appeared at the IMO Maritime Safety Committee meeting after agreeing to resign.
Medina, born in Panama, became a U.S. citizen after marrying a U.S. Coast Guard officer she later divorced.
Rumors swirled after Panama secured the powerful Secretary-General post with China’s backing—and without Medina’s objections.
It was the first time in IMO history that a flag of convenience with a record of registering shadow-fleet ships captured the top spot.
In 1973, this French Navy warship steamed into NYC, guns out, to haul away tons of America’s gold.
In her wake, the global economy was changed forever. 🧵
The French frigate De Grasse quietly docked, crew crisp in dress uniforms. Below decks?
Empty space soon to be packed with crates worth hundreds of millions.
This wasn’t a heist. It was the legal, deliberate execution of a plan Charles de Gaulle set in motion years earlier: trade in France’s reserve of U.S. dollars for physical gold.
Alright, I’ll admit it—I was a fat kid. Not 2025 fat, but early 1980s fat, thanks to off-brand processed food because we were poor.
Here’s how the Presidential Fitness Test SAVED me from bullying. Strap in, this is a long story!
I was also uncoordinated, so uncoordinated that the gym teacher gave me a 30-minute head start just so I wouldn’t get roasted by the other kids.
I also got laughed off little league and soccer teams.
And boy did I dread the Presidential Fitness test.
But you have no idea how much that motivated me. I did sprints and shuffles in my backyard.
Problem was I couldn’t do a single pull up and there was no way to practice the rope climb.
Dad was the best dad ever in some ways and not at all supportive in others. He built me a pull-up bar and after to weeks watching me hang there trying, he cane out with hard advice only a Vietnam vet could
“You’re too fat. You’ll never get up there hanging. You need to jumpstart the pull-up”
So I got a little stool and jumped up half way pulling myself the rest of the way up.
After a few weeks I got my first pull-up.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD THAT FELT
The confidence doing something hard and succeeding got me to new levels.
Then the Fitness Test came and there was just no way I was going to get the Presidential award for being in the top 85%
But I was fairly certain my practice could get me the National Award for the top 50%
Boy was I wrong. You had to climb a rope and touch the ceiling of the gym. It was about two stories up but felt like five.
I couldn’t climb 10 feet.
I wasn’t good enough in the other events to get in the top 50% without the rope climb points.
PLUS, if you made the rope climb you got your picture on the wall in the hallway.
That certificate and picture was important because I was getting bullied a lot for being fat and poor. And I’m not just talking verbal abuse, I got into many fights.
The worst bullies weren’t the most motivated kids and I figured when they called me fat I could just shrug and say “I don’t see your picture on the wall”
I ran all the way home, over a mile, that afternoon and begged dad to buy a practice rope. He said no.
I knew I could pass if I practiced as hard as I did for the pull-up but you can’t practice without a rope.
So I did two things.
I climbed the tallest tree and sat up there for hours one weekend until the fear of heights left.
And for however many weeks the fitness test was open I did nothing else in gym class but the rope.
Then I had to spend all day with my fists clenched to hide the sores on my hands from the teachers so they didn’t ban me from getting it.
Almost everyone who accomplished the rope climb did it in the first couple of days so well before the testing period was over the photo wall had been set. It was a done deal.
But I kept going. By the last day of the test I could get halfway up. That’s it. But I set my sights on the rope and refused to back down.
10 minutes of climbing agony I touched the ceiling. Problem was I was exhausted and nobody saw me do it.
So I yelled “look at me” and everyone laughed. “Where is John” they were looking all around the gym for me but nobody thought to look up.
Finally one kid did. Then they all started look. Then the gym teacher looked and just stared red.
I was in agony.
“Did I win the award?”
“YES,” she said. “You made nationals, now come down!”
“I want my photo!”
“We turned the camera back to the media department yesterday. Just come down.”
I refused. The principal was called and a frantic school wide search for a camera (these were the print days) ensued.
After about 15 minutes they found one.
I GOT MY PICTURE
Next problem was I didn’t have any practice descending from that height and my hands were raw.
I showed them to the teacher and she shrugged.
So slowly, very slowly, I made my way down and when I reached the mat the entire class clapped and cheered.
One of the best feelings of my life!
1/4
Fast forward to High School and I get into a magnet track for smart kids.
Problem was I’m dyslexic and not nearly as smart as the kids in my class.
I’m not joking either, WAPO wrote a book about the class and my best friend Adrian Cavalieri now is now a lead scientist at the proton accelerator in Switzerland. Unbelievably smart kids.
Most were unbelievably wealthy and could afford tutors too.
As puberty hit I became rail thin but I was still only one of the few poor kids snd the ONLY republican and one of the few from a military family.
There was no question I was joining the military and the one and only place I did really well was on the water sailing… so I was absolutely determined to get into the Naval Academy
It became my mission. Problem was I was at the bottom of my, albeit brilliant, class and I still wasn’t great with ball.
No way I was getting in with sports and extracurriculars.
I was extremely shy and a teacher suggested I apply for a magnet theatre and modern dance program. I was accepted.
I can not even begin to describe how much I hated it. BUT I got through it. Extracurricular done.
I still needed a varsity letter. I tried out for Lacrosse and didn’t even make the freshman team. Not even the fencing geeks would have me.
But the cross country coach offered me a tryout. Not only was I a fat kid but I have short legs. I also couldn’t lift them high enough.
But I could do one thing nobody else could: not stop. Ever.
End of freshman season I was the very fist kid in my class to get a varsity jacket. At the awards dinner my coach showed a photo of me running and said
“This kid is clearly in pain. He looked like this whenever I saw him. We just had to give him a letter.”
I got 7 more.
All that effort, and god knows how many hours struggling to study for four years, all for one goal:
To attend Annapolis.
Problem was Annapolis had a presidential fitness test too. And I failed it bad.
I could do everything except throw a simple medicine ball overhead with both hands.
I came nowhere close to the minimum standards. Problem was the coaches back then discouraged long distance runners from bulking up with weights. My arms were noodles.
But the Presidential fitness test taught me the secret. Practice until you physically can’t.
Months I spent on the basketball court in my knees throwing the MF’n medicine ball. I just kept throwing until my knees started to bleed.
And I passed. And I got I to Annapolis.
I want to say I lived happily ever after.
I did not. My life went horribly wrong.
2/4
Most of my classmates didn’t enjoy being in Annapolis but I loved every second.
It was far from easy but I tried out and was accepted to the varsity sailing team.
Studying was still painful but I got to sail and had a purpose in life. I loved it.
The Dad got terminally ill with cancer from Vietnam.
My little brother was only 12, I had two other siblings and mom worked two jobs.
There’s a lot more to the story but soon I found myself in the Superintendent’s office where the 4 star Admiral said “you’ll thank me later for sending you home to spend the last days with your dad.”
I was devastated and, to this day I’m still not happy he did that.
I enrolled in @MaritimeCollege, a Merchant Marine academy close to home. It was much harder. The school wasn’t hard to get into but had the highest attrition rate in the nation.
It took 160 credits to graduate and I had to help at home and I had to work nights to pay tuition. It was brutal. Worse was it was so hard I couldn’t find time for the sailing team.
I would like to say I was a model kid. I would like to say I breezed through.
Nope.
I had a lot of anger from my hero dying which resulted in a lot of demerits (I held the record at one point) and drinking.
But I never gave up. No matter how many hours they made me chip paint in the bulge to work off demerits or whatever the attempt to fail me out (teacher were proud of contributing to the attrition rate with Fs) I remembered that rope climb and kept hanging on.
3/4
BREAKING NEWS: Massive shipbuilding changes in DC. None of them good.
@gCaptain has confirmed from a White House source that Trump has closed the shipbuilding office at the NSC.
Reuters reports that Ian Bennitt, the President’s Special Assistant for Shipbuilding at the White House, has been fired.
Favored candidates for Provost and Superintendent positions at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy have received denial notices.
At a recent USNI shipbuilding conference, it became clear: major shipbuilding primes are actively fighting plans to expand commercial shipbuilding.
Sources inside the Pentagon say Admirals and SES are digging in their heels on several key shipbuilding objectives.
Some Jones Act companies now expressing fear that building new ships could devalue their current fleets.
Congressional sources say progress on the SHIPS Act is stalling in committee.
It’s also unlikely the new Commandant will be confirmed before the August break.
We’ve confirmed that the French billionaire who offered to invest $20B in U.S. shipping sent a letter to Trump saying he’s not getting the support he needs to move forward.
The U.S. Coast Guard is slashing cutter orders left and right.
Reports from my sources in Korea say the new far-left, pro-China president is chilling U.S.-Korean shipyard cooperation.
Nobody has seen or heard from @SecDuffy’s new acting Maritime Administrator.
The plan to centralize shipbuilding under the Department of Commerce is apparently stalled or stalling.
I spoke with half a dozen senior sources in DC—every single one is frustrated.
Yes, there’s still optimism around @SECNAV’s commitment to shipbuilding but his plate is full with emerging priorities
Not a single Admiral has publicly supported the SHIPS Act or the White House’s “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” plan.
Deadlines are being missed or pencil-whipped on the Maritime Executive Order, and with the NSC shipbuilding office closing, no one knows how the next deadline will be met.
Zero follow-through on Trump’s State of the Union promise to open a dedicated White House shipbuilding office.
New intel confirms more Navy shipbuilding delays, including further slippage in carrier programs.
Despite Trump requesting her resignation, the rogue U.S. delegate to the @IMOHQ still attended last month’s meeting, compromising U.S. objectives. @michaelgwaltz’s confirmation as UN ambassador is still not scheduled.
A Panama Canal pilot confirms U.S. military ships are still paying for transits, and @Michael_Yon confirms that China’s bridge over the canal is still under construction.
New Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea point to a failure of massive US bombing (first revealed during signalgate) to reopen the Red Sea.
It’s been 252 days since the election, and not a single new ship has been ordered.
Still no updates on public hearings into Biden-era maritime disasters, including the Gaza Pier and Baltimore Bridge.
The Baltimore Bridge removal is delayed another 9 months, and retrofits to prevent future bridge strikes around the nation are postponed.
Still zero word from @PeteHegseth on fixing the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for inland rivers and dredging.
What am I missing? The number of panicked and/or depressed calls I’ve received from DC in the last few days is unreal.
I’m struggling to find a silver lining.
For background listen to @mercoglianos and I on the @CavasShips podcast last week