Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine have been dealt a karmic blow after a flagship of their Black Sea Fleet foundered and sank as it was being towed back to port in Sevastopol. A fire of unclear origins had prompted its crew to evacuate, Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed Thursday.
Russian officials insisted that “stormy seas” caused Moskva—the ship famously told to “go fuck” itself by Ukrainian border guards—to sink, according to state news agency TASS.
The Kremlin had initially reported that the fire, which it continues to insist was the result of an ammunition detonation, had been put out. But Ukraine’s southern military command claimed that it had hit the ship with a missile strike.
“In the Black Sea operational zone, Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles hit the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet—it received significant damage,” the Operational Command South said in a statement. “A fire broke out. Other units of the ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink.”
Earlier on Thursday, U.S. officials remained unsure as to the cause of the damage, with national security adviser Jake Sullivan saying that his office didn’t “have the capacity at this point to independently verify [Ukraine’s claim] but certainly, the way this unfolded, it’s a big blow to Russia.”
Before an audience at the Economics Club in Washington, D.C., Sullivan explained that Russia has “had to kind of choose between two stories. One story is that it was just incompetence, and the other is that they came under attack. And neither is a particularly good outcome for them.”
If confirmed, the strike would represent Ukraine’s first successful downing of a Russian warship at sea.
The pride of Russia’s fleet in the Black Sea, Moskva’s loss is a significant blow to the navy. Moskva boasted a crew of almost 500 and was confirmed to have been carrying more than a dozen anti-ship Vulcan cruise missiles. The Guardian reported that it is the most significant naval cruiser to be taken out of action in wartime since 1982, when Argentina’s General Belgrano was sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror.
The 611-foot warship is not exactly “a spring chicken in naval terms,” according to Alessio Patalano, a professor of war and strategy in East Asia at King’s College London. In a Twitter thread, Patalano explained that Moskva had first been commissioned in 1983, and had been slated to undergo modernization in 2016—but never did.
“It should have been retired ages ago,” Stanimir Dobrev, an independent military expert, observed, “but the [Russian Navy] has such a severe shortage of major surface combatants that these are kept. And I don’t think the decision making structures understood how much of a liability it is to keep a 70s ship with limited upgrades in service.”