The ship Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea and operational since the early 1980s, sank Wednesday in a few hours, taking with it part of the pride of President Vladimir Putin's armed forces, which have been hit hard since the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
The Sentinel-1 satellite captured the moment of the fire of the Russian ship and revealed its location in the northern Black Sea when it was hit by two Ukrainian missiles on 13 April.
The analysis of the radar satellite images also reveals the presence of other vessels around the ship at 18:52 local time during the fire. And the coordinates indicate that it was east of Snake Island, 80 nautical miles from Odessa and 50 nautical miles off the Ukrainian coast.
According to Moscow, the cruiser suffered a fire on board that caused the ammunition to explode. Kiev, for its part, claims a missile attack, a version supported this Friday by the Pentagon.
The 186-metre-long Moskva carried 16 Bazalt/Voulkan anti-ship missiles, Fort missiles (the marine version of the long-range S-300) and Osa short-range missiles. As well as rocket launchers, cannons and torpedoes.
The ship could carry up to 680 soldiers on board, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, and “ensured air protection for the rest of the ships during operations,” Odessa regional military administration spokesman Sergey Bratchuk said on Telegram.
With its armament it fully protected a diameter of 150 kilometers around, Nick Brown, expert from the British Private Institute of Information Janes, told AFP agency. “With Turkey blocking Russian ships in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, it will be difficult for Russia to replace its air defense capability,” he said.
Moskva went to the bottom of the Black Sea with its prestigious operational curriculum, developed in Georgia in 2008, and in Syria between 2015 and 2016.
“It was the command ship, and it probably had on board the naval staff of the area,” said the retired French Admiral Pascal Ausseur, director general of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES) analysis center.
Now they will have to designate another ship to coordinate operations in the Black Sea. “It's a very small sea, everything is within range of anti-ship missiles, and its detection is very simple,” added Ausseur. So the loss of the Moskva “shows a real vulnerability” of the Russian Navy.
(With information from AFP)
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