A senior Pentagon official said Ukrainian forces hit the flagship with two Neptune missiles
Russia on Thursday said damage caused by exploding ammunition had led the Moskva to ‘lose its balance’ as it was being towed to port
Russia’s Moskva warship was hit by two Ukrainian missiles before it sank in the Black Sea, a senior Pentagon official said on Friday, calling it a “big blow” for Moscow.
Briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, the official confirmed Kyiv’s account of the incident – which Russia said was caused by exploding ammunition on board.
“We assess that they hit it with two Neptunes,” the official said, referring to Ukrainian anti-ship cruise missiles.
He said the strikes were believed to have caused casualties, but that
Russia has said the Moskva’s crew was evacuated to nearby ships.
The missile cruiser had been leading Russia’s naval effort in the seven-week conflict in Ukraine, playing a central role in the siege of the port city of Mariupol.
It sank on Thursday after an explosion and fire that Ukraine claimed was caused by a missile strike – while Russia said damage caused by exploding ammunition had led the ship to “lose its balance” as it was being towed to port.
“It’s a big blow symbolically,” the Pentagon official said. “There is a pride aspect
A knock-on effect of the sinking, he predicted, could be a form of “risk aversion” in the Russian navy.
But even more, he said, losing the Moskva – one of just three Slava-class cruisers in Moscow’s fleet – creates a “capability gap” for the Russian navy in southern Ukraine.
Under the Montreux convention, he explained, Turkey keeps the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits closed to warships in times of conflict, meaning Moscow cannot dispatch a replacement for the Moskva to the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, a stamp depicting a Ukrainian soldier making an obscene hand gesture at the Moskva has become a collector’s item for Ukrainians who see it as a sign of “victory”.
At the central post office in the capital Kyiv, hundreds of Ukrainians of every age could be seen queuing for hours on Friday to get their hands on one of the one million copies printed so far.
“That ship was the biggest one they had … They gambled a lot on it and we destroyed it!” said Yury Kolesan, 22, who waited for two-and-a-half hours to get a set of 30 stamps.
“It’s a new phase of the war, one of victory!”
The missile cruiser gained notoriety in the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when its crew called on a unit of Ukrainian border guards to surrender, only for them to defiantly refuse.
Ukraine’s postal service last month launched a competition to illustrate the episode.
Out of more than 500 submissions, Lviv designer Boris Groh’s winning entry shows a Ukrainian soldier from behind swearing at the warship.
It has proved a hit, selling out in many post offices and quickly appearing for resale online.
“We wanted to print more but the bombing last night in Kyiv affected the work of the factory and we did not manage to print the necessary quantity,” Ukrainian postal service Igor Smelyansky said.