Thread by @samlagrone

Everyone else is writing about #Moskva today! We've been working on this one for about a week looking at the most likely scenario for the engagement on April 13 and a former Navy captain has an excellent explanation for the most likely scenario.

https://twitter.com/USNINews/status/1522342587620806656

First off, the intelligence the U.S. provided Ukraine is probably nothing more than the general position of the ship, which had been operating in the same waters since the start of the war.
Similar info you could get from commercial SATCOM.

The P-8A that was in the vicinity hours before the hit could have relayed the general whereabouts to the ship to Ukrainians via voice but they don't have the data links to send targeting information to a Neptune battery.
Ships move a lot in a few hours.

A tip could have been enough to scramble some Ukrainian Navy TB2s that for sure have datalinks to target a pair of coastal defense missiles.
But, so could commercial satellite data -- which is everywhere in the Black Sea. Moskva hit the same patterns in its patrol, our guy said.

You have a ship that roams the same water in a predictable pattern in the range of your scout and your battery you don't really need the U.S. to provide the targeting data. It's nice but not essential.

Check out this graphic from our pal @CovertShores from April 12.
That was from a commercial sat not too far away from where #moskva got, got.
Don't have to be a super sleuth to suss this one out.

@CovertShores What is really interesting, the larger point in our story, is that #moskva was not ready in the slightest to defend against a missile strike -- if the evidence can be believed.

@CovertShores That now-famous photo of the ship listing to port shows that its anti-air radars for its SAM point defense system are stowed which implies that they weren't ready for a cruise missile threat at all. If you're a Ukrainian and you have a copy of Jane's and drone TV pictures...

@CovertShores Here's a screenshot from our pal, Chris Carlson.

Add to that, the Neptunes popped at a space likely to kill propulsion and knock out electrical power. Combine that with a crew of mostly conscripts with questionable damage control equipment and training it makes the most sense the Ukrainians did most of the work themselves.

In summary, saying the U.S. helped with Moskva intel could be technically accurate but this is a job the Ukrainian Navy could have executed on their own.