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BREAKING. Flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Hit by Ukrainian Missiles, Dead in the Water, Crew Evacuated – Opinion

By Pluralist / April 13, 2022

Multiple Ukrainian sources began reporting on Wednesday afternoon that there was a riot in Eastern Ukraine. Moskva (Moscow), the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, had been hit by two Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles fired from near Odesa. The missile is a native Ukrainian design based on the Russian Kh-35, but it has superior range and accuracy because it wasn’t designed in Russia. The missile has an approximate range of 175 miles, and it was only activated in 2021.

This is how Forbes described the Moskva before Russia’s invasion.

Moskva can be described as a mobile missile battery of 12,500 tons and 612 feet with almost 500 crew members. She packs enough anti-ship missiles to wipe out the entire Ukrainian navy and enough air-defense missiles to swat away any conceivable aerial attack on the Black Sea Fleet’s amphibious flotilla.
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She packs 16 fixed launchers for P-1000 anti-ship missiles with a range of 300 miles, vertical tubes for 64 S-300 air-defense missiles with a range of 56 miles, rail launchers for 40 Osa missiles for aerial self-defense plus a bevy of guns—twin 130-millimeter guns that can hit targets 15 miles away plus self-defense guns. She also has a helicopter, torpedo tubes, and a helicopter.

The cruiser’s sensors make her self-sufficient as a missile battery. The ship’s Top Pair and Top Steer radars can peer out to 200 miles or farther. Moskva led the Russian navy’s seaborne assault on the Republic of Georgia back in 2008, protecting three amphibious ships that landed a battalion or two of naval infantry.
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It’s not clear how many Neptunes it might take to punch through Moskva’s defenses. It is not known how many Neptunes Ukrainians have.

Now we know the answers to all the remaining questions. Enough.

Though the sources reporting the hits were unusually trustworthy, they were Ukrainian (by the way, since this war started, I’ve found that official Ukraine sources are very conservative on their announcements and are more likely to lowball claims than puff them up) and I was reluctant to run a story without neutral verification. The Russian state media provided this information. It is via RIA Novosti.

Russian Defense Ministry stated that the explosion occurred due to an incident on the Moskva cruiser.

All crew members had to be evacuated. We are still investigating the cause of this incident.

Reiterating, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that the Moskva was severely damaged and crew members were evacuated. No crew and fire are not good combinations for a warship.

How can this be improved?

First, once the crew has been evacuated, it is impossible to control damage. A ship that carries more than 16 tons of high explosives, plus propellant in rocket tubes, has little chance of being saved. That is why I’d credit the claims of Moskva sinking. Even if it can be salvaged, the Russian naval facilities in Sebastopol can’t do the repair work required for MoskvaTo travel to make repairs.

Second, even if this account is accurate, discipline at the Combat Information Center was absent. It is hard to imagine how it would be on an aircraft without an admiral.

According to experts, it will take at least six Neptune-related hits for the planet to be able put into motion. MoskvaIt is out of sight. We know that isn’t true. Why it wasn’t true needs to be studied. Did the Moskva operating understrength? Was the crew operating at the usual slovenly standards we’ve come to expect of the Russian military? Was the ship’s design flawed? Are the defensive sensors not quite as effective as the manufacturer’s brochures might indicate?

Fourth: MoskvaThere are 6 Russian versions of the Phalanx Close-in Weapons System. But two cruise missiles which were exactly the type of threat that the CIWS was intended to stop leaked through. Or was it the defect in equipment? Or was it “human factors?”

Politics of the Sinking of The MoskvaThe earthquake will occur. It will be seismic. Moskva is the ship that called upon Ukrainian troops on Snake Island to surrender during the early days of the war and received the memorable response “Russian warship…go f*** yourself” and had a Ukrainian postage stamp designed in honor of the event.

The one thing a totalitarian regime or someone who visualizes himself as a “strongman” can’t tolerate is ridicule, and the sinking of the Moskva will create plenty of that. So we need to expect major air, and missile strikes in Kiev as Putin tries to teach these Ukrainian недочеловек…you’d recognize the word in its original German, Untermenschen…a bloody lesson.

But every tragedy has a silver lining…if you look hard enough.

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Pluralist

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