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Moskva cruiser sank while being towed in a storm – Russian Defense Ministry

246 points by globalise83 5y ago

ddaalluu2 5y ago
WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE FOR A TECH NEWS SITE
- jakeinspace 5y ago
  A cruiser is distracted by an unmanned drone and then taken out by one or more guided missiles, resulting in the most significant loss of a naval vessel in decades. War is technology, more so than the work most of us do.
trhway 5y ago
Glory to Ukraine! It was exactly the ship in that famous phrase of being sent very offensively and very far by the defenders of Zmeiny island (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_warship,_go_fuck_yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_warship,_go_fuck_yours...) which has become a Ukrainian battle cry since then, and looks like the ship has ultimately reached the prescribed destination. Interesting that the ship was hit by the Ukraine developed missiles which Ukraine put in service just about a year ago. Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in 2014-2015) it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine has made in the last 8 years and in particular absorbing all the new developments in the technology while Russia in many areas hasn't progressed since 1945. I see that is a perfect illustration of constant learning and adaptation vs. stagnation. Anyway, for anybody who likes Odessa and hates its shelling by those Russian Navy ships - the video of the burning "Moskva" with the wonderfully matching occasion soundtrack "Moscow" by GenghisKhan https://twitter.com/i/status/1514481957962657794 https://twitter.com/i/status/1514481957962657794
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in 2014-2015) it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine has made in the last 8 years and in particular absorbing all the new developments in the technology while Russia in many areas hasn't progressed since 1945. Even worse than that for Russia. The "Moskova" was created in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day Russia. Russia wants to pretend that the USSR's history is Russia and Russia's alone. That's why Russia wants to erase Ukrainian history. But this war is proving that Ukrainian contributions to the old USSR's power was mighty and cannot be ignored. ------ The mighty warship was created by Ukraine, and brought down by Ukrainian missiles. The story here is really about how Russia has forgotten their Slavic brother's contributions to the USSR. EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    > EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack. Such as that it’s loaded with explosives that won’t respond well to being hit with anti ship missiles?
    - sliken 5y ago
      More along the lines of the radar for most of it's systems point forward, leaving the rear much less protected by anti-missile tech.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Its a cruiser. Which means the ship was loaded with anti-missile missiles, anti-missile RADAR, and anti-missile CIWS. The fact remains that the Ukrainians killed an anti-missile cruiser, with... a missile. That's impressive. Something horribly wrong has happened to the Russian anti-missile defense systems. That suggests that the Ukrainians know about a weakness to the Russian missile defense systems... a blindspot where the RADAR wouldn't pickup enemy missiles perhaps? In any case, maybe its not so surprising, Ukrainians built the ship after all.
      - rich_sasha 5y ago
        Apparently the ship’s armaments were vastly out of date. Its combat systems were from 90s and it had no modern anti-missile defences. Its offensive weaponry was more impressive, but even then it barely carried the radars to support them.
      - speeder 5y ago
        I saw elsewhere that an upgrade was proposed but the budget for it was denied... I guess it is just a matter of reading the proposal, figure out what needed upgrading, and considering that to be the weakness you can exploit. An analogy would be finding out the castle you want to conquer was supposed to have a rear gate repaired but the repairs were postponed... it would be quite obvious to attack that rear gate.
      - 5y ago
- dboreham 5y ago
  We don't know today how much help they had. e.g. perhaps a live KH-12 feed is handy for guiding a simple missile to a moving ship.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    This is it really. We have no idea how much American / outside involvement going on. It may not even have been a Ukrainian-made missile. Maybe it was a Harpoon, but they're just saying Ukrainian because NATO doesn't want the public credit. Russia had 100's of advisors in North Vietnam during the Cold War I don't see why the US shouldn't have support units all around E. Ukraine.
    - throwmeariver1 5y ago
      We pretty much know that NATO is helping them immensely with battlefield overwatch there are awacs and other air assets 24/7 in the air around the borders of Ukraine. Harpoon is not yet delivered and the operators are still in training as are the ones for the switchblade system so it was most definitely a Neptun.
      - jollybean 5y ago
        "Harpoon is not yet delivered" we don't know that.
    - relativ575 5y ago
      Not 100, more than 100,000 Soviet personnel were sent to Vietnam during the war, sometime participated in fighting themselves - [0] China also actively involved in the war. At the peak of their involvement, 170,000 Chinese troops were present in North Vietnam - [1] [0] - https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-against-americans https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-again... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War
- antattack 5y ago
  Makes me wonder however, where Ukraine's (edit)Neptune missiles where all this time and why Ukraine is getting Harpoon missiles from UK if they have their own.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    > and why Ukraine is getting Harpoon missiles from UK if they have their own. Because missiles are not a renewable resource, and the more they have the more they can fire?
    - Arrath 5y ago
      Harpoons also carry a warhead about 50% larger than the Neptune, increasing the range of targets they can effectively hit. The Neptune is only designed for targets of 5,000 tons, compared to the Moskva being over 10,000. Whether it was a lucky hit on a/the magazine compartment(s), poor damage control, or combinations there of, good job Ukraine and the Neptune.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    Plausible deniability.
  - trhway 5y ago
    they have only one battery which seems to have just become really operational.
  - anotherboffin 5y ago
    The Economist [0] (paywalled) says the factories making the Nautilus missiles have been heavily bombarded and that the Ukrainian military doesn’t seem to have many of these missiles. I guess they were just very carefully choosing their target and the time to strike? [0] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/04/14/ukraine-claims-to-have-sunk-a-russian-warship https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/04/14/ukraine-claims-t...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 5y ago
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  > the video of the burning "Moskva" Is there confirmation that it is specifically this ship? This video appeared in some places which backtracked this claim.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
antattack 5y ago
On that same page there's another article titled: Военная операция на Украине. Онлайн Which google translates to: "Military operation in Ukraine. Online" However Военная also means war, so I wonder how different would the tile be to say War operation in Ukraine? Would it be война на Украине?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Slavic speaker here, “Военная” looks like the adjective derived from the “war” noun. So not “war”, but kind of like, “war-ful operation”, or “combat operation”.
  - ivan_gammel 5y ago
    It is indeed derived from „war“, but here it has different meaning, so „military“ is correct translation. You would use „war operation“ as translation if this operation was an episode of war, but according to Russian propaganda it is not. Combat operation would be translated as «боевая операция».
- ivan_gammel 5y ago
  Native Russian speaker here: translation „military“ is correct, because this is how it is positioned in official Russian sources - an operation conducted by military forces (the term operation comes from FSB, meaning that according to Russian propaganda it is more like police or counter-terrorism operation).
subroutine 5y ago
"Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island, this is Russian Warship Moskva, surrender yourselves or die" "Russian warship Moskva, go fuck yourself" Then Moskva opened fire. Everyone on the island was (edit) captured. Guess where Moskva is now? At the bottom of the ocean. The Ukrainians are so badass.
- bhouston 5y ago
  > Then Moskva opened fire and killed everyone on the island. I understand they didn't die and were just taken prisoner. See: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/1088593653/snake-island-sailors-freed-prisoner-swap https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/1088593653/snake-island-sailo...
  - bnt 5y ago
    Weren't all of them recovered? Or is everything misinformation these days?
    - mechanical_bear 5y ago
      Not necessarily “misinformation” exactly, so much as just general “fog of war”.
      - RC_ITR 5y ago
        From Wikipedia: Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information presented as fact, either intentionally or unintentionally. Disinformation is a subset of misinformation, that which is deliberately deceptive. So yes 'misinformation' no 'disinformation' Isn't English just such a utilitarian language?
        mechanical_bear 5y ago
        Yes, well in my opinion, speaking as a published researcher in mis and disinformation: I have seen better definitions, usually something to the effect where it’s false information that runs contrary to known fact at the time of the claims being made. At the time, they thought the personnel were dead.
dotopotoro 5y ago
Just some notes. It was a flagship of black sea fleet. It had crew of approx 500. After the event, russian ships started keeping greater distance from Ukraine.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > After the event, russian ships started keeping greater distance from Ukraine. Because it was the primary air defense for that entire area. If it can be hit by anti-ship missiles, the rest of the fleet definitely can.
Tarragon 5y ago
"due to damage to the hull received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition" The Ministry of Defense didn't clarify whose ammunition it was that exploded. More seriously that was the flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. That's gotta put the fear of god into the other ship captains.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Seeing as it sank many hours after it first caught fire, I’d imagine it was its own ammunition that caused the big fire (alongside fuel, lubricants etc). What set its own ammunition on fire is the follow-up question. Seems like the Ukrainian missile, though after what we’ve seen, nothing would surprise me.
  - Tarragon 5y ago
    Sure, I'll believe that an ammunition fire on the Moskva is what sank it. Hower that fire was caused by... Top contenders are missile and inept crew. Looks like Russia would rather we accept that the crew was inept than it was sun by a Ukrainian made missile
    - dekhn 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati... note the very first example is a sinking ship
    - pmoriarty 5y ago
      "Top contenders are missile and inept crew." It could also be sabotage by a Russian crewmember or foreign infiltrator.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        You forgot the aliens.
paxys 5y ago
> The missile cruiser "Moskva" sank while being towed to its destination in a storm due to damage to the hull received due to a fire from the detonation of ammunition. [Translated] So many different ways to avoid saying that a Ukrainian missile sank it.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  A missile cruiser is going to have a lot of hypergolics on board. If you don’t know what you’re doing that’s an easy way to blow yourself up, like what happened with the submarine Kursk. So it’s plausible that it wasn’t the Ukrainians, but then again it would surely be more honourable to get blown up by a Ukrainian missile than by your own incompetence. So if Ukraine is falsely claiming credit they should be taking it as a propaganda godsend.
  - SergeAx 5y ago
    First claims of missile strike was from Ukrainian side way before even radio monitoring OSINT kicked in. So it seems that Ukrainians knew about that cigarette fire on the ship the moment it started 50-150 km from the shore and reported it as their war victory. Coincidence? I don't think so.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Ukraine announced the strike before Russia announced anything was wrong though.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      That’s probably right. It just sounds so outlandish to make up a lie to make yourself look bad. Maybe there’s something about Russian military culture that the rest of us don’t understand, where being killed by the enemy is a much bigger loss of face than killing yourself.
      - yks 5y ago
        Their current war is based on the propaganda of Russian superiority over Ukrainians, military superiority specifically since Russians built their whole modern ideology on winning WWII. Admitting that Ukrainians are capable of anything is therefore undercutting this foundational national idea.
sitkack 5y ago
All sides of war are such an incredible waste.
- dotopotoro 5y ago
  Kind of true, but only one of the sides is instigator, and tries to repeat kaliningrad‘s cleansing.
  - HKH2 5y ago
    Patrick Lancaster is one of the few people who do journalism on the ground in the Donbass region. He shows clear shell damage to civilian targets and interviews people and they say that they are being shelled by Ukrainians.
    - dralley 5y ago
      Even if we were to take that as 100% truth, how would it make Ukraine the instagator? Russia invaded the Donbas region years ago and there has been an ongoing shooting war (albeit a largely stalemated one) ever since. But Russia is still responsible for starting the war.
      - HKH2 5y ago
        The current war did not start in a vacuum. Who backed the Maidan revolution in 2014? Who backed the regime change that just happened in Pakistan? Who keeps fighting for regime changes all over the Middle East leading to the deaths of millions? Who is going to be held accountable for all that needless loss of life?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- drakonka 5y ago
  Except for the side defending its country from an invasion.
- 5y ago
WJW 5y ago
More like being "sank while being towed" I think? (edit: original title was "Cruiser 'Moskva' sank while towing") Anyway, as a former navy officer it looks very bad that the flagship of a fleet was apparently sunk by a anti ship missile (ASM) strike. Certainly in NATO navies you always keep a layered defense for your high value targets and while the Neptune ASM is very modern, the flagship should definitely not have been the first to be sunk. This will be (should be) a wake up call for the rest of the fleet and keep them much further from the shore, which in turn has impact on the amount of air control the Russians can exert on the southern parts of Ukraine as apparently they have been leaning on navy vessels to provide SAM cover.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > More like being "sank while being towed" I think? (edit: original title was "Cruiser 'Moskva' sank while towing") Fun fact: in early modern English, "towing" was the correct passive participial form, and "being towed" was ungrammatical.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Wow, TIL! How would the early English have expressed "towing" in the active sense though?
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      The same way. You'd have to make the distinction through context. read (a little) more: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2903 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2903
- tim333 5y ago
  Some info off twitter >So how did Ukraine do it? Early reports suggest a brilliantly effective combination of tactics, strategy and the exploitation of its own capabilities, combined with awareness of Russian weaknesses >According to early reports, the attack took place during a storm. This would have made flying difficult but also helps to conceal shore-based activity from observation. The Russians wouldn't have seen the preparations >Reportedly, the Ukrainians used a Bayraktar TB-2 drone to distract the Moskva. The Ukrainian Navy introduced TB-2s into service in August 2021. >How did the Russians not see the incoming Neptunes? The Moskva has/had a single main air defence radar - a 3P41 Volna phased array to guide S300 missiles. Problem is, it only has a 180 degree field of vision >360 degree coverage is provided by MR-800 Voshkod/Top Pair 3-D long range air search radars for shorter-range SA-8 missiles. But it's likely that in the storm, they couldn't distinguish the sea-skimming Neptunes from the wavetops. So likely a Bayraktar distracting on one side while the missiles were camouflaged by the storm waves. Quite cunning really. More info: https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1514498197489659909 https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1514498197489659909
akimball 5y ago
Nah, it was upgraded to a submarine.
- bambax 5y ago
  All ships can go under water. Some can resurface.
- seandoe 5y ago
  Oh sinking? That's not a bug
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sebastianconcpt 5y ago
  You are supremely correct comrade!
riffic 5y ago
uh, tass.ru is not the most unbiased of sources here. Why are we linking to it and not say, someone a bit more neutral (for example, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva#Sinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva#Sinking)
- IMTDb 5y ago
  Because the fact that it is relayed by a pro-putin newspaper is significant. This was is also an information war, so analysing who reports the news is almost as important as what is reported.
  - riffic 5y ago
    TASS is a news agency, like Reuters or AP, not a newspaper. While it's significant, it's also propaganda. At the very least, WP has a policy to maintain a neutral point of view and to only put things on the site which can be reliably sourced. We should be sensitive to the power of a site like this in relaying harmful propaganda.
    - MichaelBurge 5y ago
      Harmful propaganda is good and informative if even it confirms the ship sunk. If Ukraine or some US news agency announced it, I wouldn't believe it. But now even Russia is admitting it - so it's as good as confirmed to me that Ukraine sank their ship.
      - riffic 5y ago
        this shouldn't be linked directly to from HN. Let others report what TASS is reporting.
- jakubadamw 5y ago
  You're right, TASS is a Russian state press agency transmitting official propaganda but what this is an example of is Russians admitting their own loss. It rarely happens in this war, which makes this all the more interesting.
gvb 5y ago
Quote from the Moscow-based think tank, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies: “The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva cruiser, was indeed attacked by the Neptune anti-ship missiles from the coastline between Odessa and Mykolaiv,” it said, adding that a drone distracted the ship before the missiles hit. [emphasis mine] Ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/ukraine-russian-missile-cruiser-moskva-warship/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/ukraine-russ...
- Arrath 5y ago
  As the ship was host to a S-300F system, roughly analogous to the US's AEGIS missile defense, getting distracted by a single drone sounds like it should be yet another black eye in this whole chain of events.
  - dathinab 5y ago
    What if, just hypothetical, it was a swarm. (I don't think it was in this case). I mean private persons can use drone swarms to put pictures on the night sky. And while they are rout pre-programmed, it's not hard to use a template to very fast pre-program a drone swarm to fly some pseudo randomized pattern around a ship of which the position is known.
    - weeblewobble 5y ago
      Likely not a consumer class drone/quadcopter like what you're picturing, but a combat drone (basically a small airplane) like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2
  - favorited 5y ago
    The analysis I saw noted that their air defense only had a 180-degree range. So a drone could be used to distract their defense, get it pointed away from the Neptune launcher, then fire from the ship's blind spot.
- newsclues 5y ago
Barrera 5y ago
By any measure, the war is going very badly for Russia. None of its claimed aims have been met, and the sinking adds to a long line of apparent military defeats. This raises the question of what comes next if this kind of thing keeps happening. What does Russia do? Russia appears to have staked the farm on this operation. Can it afford anything less than total victory? The Russian military has made a sizable investment in tactical nuclear weapons with allegedly 2,000 of them on hand [1]. These small weapons can be detonated in ways that produce minimal fallout but lots of destruction [2]: > A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be targeted at the enemy interior away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military and with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what point does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off? [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
- paxys 5y ago
  Unless they are also planning to nuke the rest of the planet, there is no "victory" in that scenario.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - fmajid 5y ago
    Nuking Kyiv would probably kill more Russians and Belarusians than Ukrainians from the fallout.
  - Barrera 5y ago
    The elimination of large chunks of the Ukrainian army in a single detonation could lead to the stated goal of the invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv. It would be a calculated risk that the response from the West would be much like it has been so far. We're not talking "The Day After," but more like a really big bomb and 2,000 more where that came from. The response to the invasion has been fragmented at best, and it's not unreasonable to think that would continue, especially given a county that has demonstrated a willingness to use nuclear weapons in battle. I'm not saying this is likely, but more speculating as to what series of events would cause the scenario to play out.
j15e 5y ago
Why is there no image of the sinking ship? Because at sea in war zone? Wouldn't Ukrainian army want to show image from their drone after hit? New satellite image coming soon?
- toast0 5y ago
  (Publicly accessible) satellite images weren't immediately available because of cloudy conditions, from what I read on news reports about the incident.
  - enriquto 5y ago
    There are surely satellite SAR images available, though.
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  > Wouldn't Ukrainian army want to show image from their drone after hit? Why they would? Minor benefits and some important info would leak. And they likely have many important tasks right now leaving PR for other people.
- dotopotoro 5y ago
  Drone possibly was scrificial. Satellite is not on demand and not in ukraine possession and would not show much after moscow sank.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  Apparently it sank during a storm so probably getting visual confirmation to share was though. The drone was used to distract the radar, probably got shot down.
AdamH12113 5y ago
English version: https://tass.com/russia/1438045 https://tass.com/russia/1438045
- dang 5y ago
  Changed from https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14383383 https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14383383. Thanks!
breck 5y ago
Interesting read from just 7 days ago: "Russia’s Most Powerful Warship In The Black Sea Is Operating In A Pattern" https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/russias-most-powerful-warship-in-the-black-sea-is-operating-in-a-pattern/ https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/russias-most-po...
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That is indeed interesting. But I would assume that the satellite coverage over the area is at least as good if not substantially better and that that data reaches Ukraine as fast as it can be collected and passed on.
rixrax 5y ago
Couple of questions that I remain curious about now that sinking has been confirmed: 1. Did it go to a bottom with some nuclear warheads onboard? What is going to happen to these? (Slava class is nuclear strike capable[0]) 2. It was the flagship of the BS fleet. This I have been told implies admiral and their staff on board. Any news of the fate of the fleet staff? 3. Is there any news beyond 'all were evacuated' of the fate of the crew? Some news said Turkish navy managed to rescue ~50 sailors. What about the rest ~450[1]? [0] https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/ukraines-next-nightmare-russias-slava-class-cruisers-are-threatening-odessa/ https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/ukraines-next-nightmare-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava-class_cruiser
- Qub3d 5y ago
  Regarding (1), any nuclear weapons may just remain on the sea floor. For one, we've had nukes lost before by accident (called a "broken arrow" incident in US military) and its estimated around 50 have been lost at sea and never recovered[0]. The thing is, water is a really good radiation shield, and nuclear weapons must execute an extremely precise series of actions to detonate. It may actually be safest to just leave them put. [0]:http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml
bastardoperator 5y ago
Sounds like you could sink all these ships pretty easily if a single drone kicked this entire chain of events off.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  There was also severe weather, and the Neptunes are sea-skimming. Sounds like the Ukranians waited for the perfect shot, as there aren't many of the things.
a-b 5y ago
Burn in hell!
travisgriggs 5y ago
Two questions. US ships usually have phalanx defensive systems for anti missle deterrents. I’ve always heard these are pretty effective as long as their active and not overwhelmed. Does the Russian navy not possess these? Or do they, and it just didn’t work well?
- foldr 5y ago
  The Phalanx has an effective range of just under a mile. Even a subsonic surface-skimming missile could easily cover that distance in around 5 seconds. So it's very much a defense of last resort. Missiles should ideally be intercepted by anti-missile systems with much longer ranges.
- ApostleMatthew 5y ago
  Russia uses a similar system, the Kashtan CIWS. This article (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61103927 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61103927) indicates that the Moskva did have one installed, though I don’t know why it didn’t help in this case.
  - subroutine 5y ago
    Drones are reported to have been used to harass the vessel and keep its air defences distracted before the missiles were fired from a hidden battery near Odessa. At least two of the missiles are then reported to have struck the ship – causing a massive explosion and inferno as they are believed to have detonated one of Moskova’s exposed deckside missile tubes. https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/sneaky-way-ukraine-distracted-russian-warship-moskva/news-story/4243404b1394fa2f18d44290afeabd9a https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/sneaky-way-ukraine-dist...
tomohawk 5y ago
Additional information: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-russias-black-sea-flagship-sinks https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-repo...
mkl95 5y ago
The ship was 40+ years old, although it was going to be used until 2026. How common is it for warships to be that old?
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Very common.. US Ticonderoga class cruisers were first commissioned in 1983, so they're all ~40 years old. We're in the process of decommissioning some of them now, but many will likely still be sailing in 2040. Often times older ships get retrofit with the latest defense/offense capabilities and new propulsion if there's something they'd benefit from. Ohio and Los Angeles class submarines were mostly built in the 1980s as well and many / most (?) are still active. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    In a technical sense, the USS Constitution, first launched in 1797, remains a commissioned ship of the US Navy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution Though more generally, US warships seem to have a roughly 40 year service life. The second-longest active commission belongs to the USS Pueblo, still officially on patrol, and commissioned in 1945. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2) Otherwise, the oldest active ship in normal duty appears to be the amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge (1970), the oldest carrier the USS Nimitz (1975), and the oldest submarine the USS Ohio (1981). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_United_States_Navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_U...
- mannerheim 5y ago
  It was actually supposed to remain in service until 2040: https://tass.com/defense/1174875 https://tass.com/defense/1174875
anikan_vader 5y ago
To put things in perspective, this was the only capital ship being operated in the Black Sea (by any navy). Russia is the only Black sea power that fields cruisers (or even destroyers), and the only warships they now have officially on duty in the Black Sea are frigates or smaller. In terms of capital ships, this leaves them with one battlecruiser and two cruisers in operational condition, none of which have access to the Black Sea. (Their sole aircraft carrier is under repairs). The only other loss of a warship of comparable size in combat since WW2 was the ARA General Belgrano, a slightly smaller cruiser sunk by a British sub in 1982. Losing a surface ship to enemy action is just not common these days. For a little more context, the only currently commissioned US naval vessel to have sunk an enemy ship is the USS Constitution, which sank the HMS Java (and more famously the HMS Guerriere) in 1812.
- fmajid 5y ago
  Turkey’s closed the Bosporus to military ships under the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention. It’s not as if any Russian ships could even get into the Mediterranean anyway.
  - yucky 5y ago
    They could build them in a port there, no? Maybe Sevastopol?
trasz 5y ago
Not directly related, but I find Safari’s automatic translation invaluable for following this war - because I can read the “other side’s” media instead of looking for “our media” to pick up a story. The one built into Telegram is useful too, but terribly unreliable. And boy, what’s happening there… Russians are getting increasingly aware of the situation, and they are calling for blood. And I don’t mean (just) Ukrainian blood.
tkgally 5y ago
The following paragraph in a Guardian article caught my eye: “It is the most significant naval vessel to be sunk since the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed by a British submarine, HMS Conqueror in 1982. It is the first time Moscow has lost a cruiser since German planes sunk the Chervona Ukraina (Red Ukraine) in 1941 at Sevastopol – the same Crimean naval base which the Moskva was being towed towards when it sank.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/russia-moskva-cruiser-sunk-stormy-seas-defense-ministry https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/russia-moskva-...

246 points by globalise83 5y ago

ddaalluu2 5y ago

WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE FOR A TECH NEWS SITE

jakeinspace 5y ago
A cruiser is distracted by an unmanned drone and then taken out by one or more guided missiles, resulting in the most significant loss of a naval vessel in decades. War is technology, more so than the work most of us do.

trhway 5y ago

Glory to Ukraine! It was exactly the ship in that famous phrase of being sent very offensively and very far by the defenders of Zmeiny island (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_warship,_go_fuck_yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_warship,_go_fuck_yours...) which has become a Ukrainian battle cry since then, and looks like the ship has ultimately reached the prescribed destination. Interesting that the ship was hit by the Ukraine developed missiles which Ukraine put in service just about a year ago. Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in 2014-2015) it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine has made in the last 8 years and in particular absorbing all the new developments in the technology while Russia in many areas hasn't progressed since 1945. I see that is a perfect illustration of constant learning and adaptation vs. stagnation. Anyway, for anybody who likes Odessa and hates its shelling by those Russian Navy ships - the video of the burning "Moskva" with the wonderfully matching occasion soundtrack "Moscow" by GenghisKhan https://twitter.com/i/status/1514481957962657794 https://twitter.com/i/status/1514481957962657794

dragontamer 5y ago
> Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in 2014-2015) it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine has made in the last 8 years and in particular absorbing all the new developments in the technology while Russia in many areas hasn't progressed since 1945. Even worse than that for Russia. The "Moskova" was created in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day Russia. Russia wants to pretend that the USSR's history is Russia and Russia's alone. That's why Russia wants to erase Ukrainian history. But this war is proving that Ukrainian contributions to the old USSR's power was mighty and cannot be ignored. ------ The mighty warship was created by Ukraine, and brought down by Ukrainian missiles. The story here is really about how Russia has forgotten their Slavic brother's contributions to the USSR. EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack.
- rosndo 5y ago
  > EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack. Such as that it’s loaded with explosives that won’t respond well to being hit with anti ship missiles?
  - sliken 5y ago
    More along the lines of the radar for most of it's systems point forward, leaving the rear much less protected by anti-missile tech.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Its a cruiser. Which means the ship was loaded with anti-missile missiles, anti-missile RADAR, and anti-missile CIWS. The fact remains that the Ukrainians killed an anti-missile cruiser, with... a missile. That's impressive. Something horribly wrong has happened to the Russian anti-missile defense systems. That suggests that the Ukrainians know about a weakness to the Russian missile defense systems... a blindspot where the RADAR wouldn't pickup enemy missiles perhaps? In any case, maybe its not so surprising, Ukrainians built the ship after all.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      Apparently the ship’s armaments were vastly out of date. Its combat systems were from 90s and it had no modern anti-missile defences. Its offensive weaponry was more impressive, but even then it barely carried the radars to support them.
    - speeder 5y ago
      I saw elsewhere that an upgrade was proposed but the budget for it was denied... I guess it is just a matter of reading the proposal, figure out what needed upgrading, and considering that to be the weakness you can exploit. An analogy would be finding out the castle you want to conquer was supposed to have a rear gate repaired but the repairs were postponed... it would be quite obvious to attack that rear gate.
    - 5y ago
dboreham 5y ago
We don't know today how much help they had. e.g. perhaps a live KH-12 feed is handy for guiding a simple missile to a moving ship.
- jollybean 5y ago
  This is it really. We have no idea how much American / outside involvement going on. It may not even have been a Ukrainian-made missile. Maybe it was a Harpoon, but they're just saying Ukrainian because NATO doesn't want the public credit. Russia had 100's of advisors in North Vietnam during the Cold War I don't see why the US shouldn't have support units all around E. Ukraine.
  - throwmeariver1 5y ago
    We pretty much know that NATO is helping them immensely with battlefield overwatch there are awacs and other air assets 24/7 in the air around the borders of Ukraine. Harpoon is not yet delivered and the operators are still in training as are the ones for the switchblade system so it was most definitely a Neptun.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      "Harpoon is not yet delivered" we don't know that.
  - relativ575 5y ago
    Not 100, more than 100,000 Soviet personnel were sent to Vietnam during the war, sometime participated in fighting themselves - [0] China also actively involved in the war. At the peak of their involvement, 170,000 Chinese troops were present in North Vietnam - [1] [0] - https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-against-americans https://www.rbth.com/history/332396-how-soviets-fought-again... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_in_the_Vietnam_War
antattack 5y ago
Makes me wonder however, where Ukraine's (edit)Neptune missiles where all this time and why Ukraine is getting Harpoon missiles from UK if they have their own.
- lolinder 5y ago
  > and why Ukraine is getting Harpoon missiles from UK if they have their own. Because missiles are not a renewable resource, and the more they have the more they can fire?
  - Arrath 5y ago
    Harpoons also carry a warhead about 50% larger than the Neptune, increasing the range of targets they can effectively hit. The Neptune is only designed for targets of 5,000 tons, compared to the Moskva being over 10,000. Whether it was a lucky hit on a/the magazine compartment(s), poor damage control, or combinations there of, good job Ukraine and the Neptune.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Plausible deniability.
- trhway 5y ago
  they have only one battery which seems to have just become really operational.
- anotherboffin 5y ago
  The Economist [0] (paywalled) says the factories making the Nautilus missiles have been heavily bombarded and that the Ukrainian military doesn’t seem to have many of these missiles. I guess they were just very carefully choosing their target and the time to strike? [0] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/04/14/ukraine-claims-to-have-sunk-a-russian-warship https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/04/14/ukraine-claims-t...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 5y ago
matkoniecz 5y ago
> the video of the burning "Moskva" Is there confirmation that it is specifically this ship? This video appeared in some places which backtracked this claim.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

antattack 5y ago

On that same page there's another article titled: Военная операция на Украине. Онлайн Which google translates to: "Military operation in Ukraine. Online" However Военная also means war, so I wonder how different would the tile be to say War operation in Ukraine? Would it be война на Украине?

rich_sasha 5y ago
Slavic speaker here, “Военная” looks like the adjective derived from the “war” noun. So not “war”, but kind of like, “war-ful operation”, or “combat operation”.
- ivan_gammel 5y ago
  It is indeed derived from „war“, but here it has different meaning, so „military“ is correct translation. You would use „war operation“ as translation if this operation was an episode of war, but according to Russian propaganda it is not. Combat operation would be translated as «боевая операция».
ivan_gammel 5y ago
Native Russian speaker here: translation „military“ is correct, because this is how it is positioned in official Russian sources - an operation conducted by military forces (the term operation comes from FSB, meaning that according to Russian propaganda it is more like police or counter-terrorism operation).

subroutine 5y ago

"Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island, this is Russian Warship Moskva, surrender yourselves or die" "Russian warship Moskva, go fuck yourself" Then Moskva opened fire. Everyone on the island was (edit) captured. Guess where Moskva is now? At the bottom of the ocean. The Ukrainians are so badass.

bhouston 5y ago
> Then Moskva opened fire and killed everyone on the island. I understand they didn't die and were just taken prisoner. See: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/1088593653/snake-island-sailors-freed-prisoner-swap https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/1088593653/snake-island-sailo...
- bnt 5y ago
  Weren't all of them recovered? Or is everything misinformation these days?
  - mechanical_bear 5y ago
    Not necessarily “misinformation” exactly, so much as just general “fog of war”.
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      From Wikipedia: Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information presented as fact, either intentionally or unintentionally. Disinformation is a subset of misinformation, that which is deliberately deceptive. So yes 'misinformation' no 'disinformation' Isn't English just such a utilitarian language?
      - mechanical_bear 5y ago
        Yes, well in my opinion, speaking as a published researcher in mis and disinformation: I have seen better definitions, usually something to the effect where it’s false information that runs contrary to known fact at the time of the claims being made. At the time, they thought the personnel were dead.

dotopotoro 5y ago

Just some notes. It was a flagship of black sea fleet. It had crew of approx 500. After the event, russian ships started keeping greater distance from Ukraine.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> After the event, russian ships started keeping greater distance from Ukraine. Because it was the primary air defense for that entire area. If it can be hit by anti-ship missiles, the rest of the fleet definitely can.

Tarragon 5y ago

"due to damage to the hull received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition" The Ministry of Defense didn't clarify whose ammunition it was that exploded. More seriously that was the flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. That's gotta put the fear of god into the other ship captains.

rich_sasha 5y ago
Seeing as it sank many hours after it first caught fire, I’d imagine it was its own ammunition that caused the big fire (alongside fuel, lubricants etc). What set its own ammunition on fire is the follow-up question. Seems like the Ukrainian missile, though after what we’ve seen, nothing would surprise me.
- Tarragon 5y ago
  Sure, I'll believe that an ammunition fire on the Moskva is what sank it. Hower that fire was caused by... Top contenders are missile and inept crew. Looks like Russia would rather we accept that the crew was inept than it was sun by a Ukrainian made missile
  - dekhn 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati... note the very first example is a sinking ship
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "Top contenders are missile and inept crew." It could also be sabotage by a Russian crewmember or foreign infiltrator.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      You forgot the aliens.

paxys 5y ago

> The missile cruiser "Moskva" sank while being towed to its destination in a storm due to damage to the hull received due to a fire from the detonation of ammunition. [Translated] So many different ways to avoid saying that a Ukrainian missile sank it.

Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
A missile cruiser is going to have a lot of hypergolics on board. If you don’t know what you’re doing that’s an easy way to blow yourself up, like what happened with the submarine Kursk. So it’s plausible that it wasn’t the Ukrainians, but then again it would surely be more honourable to get blown up by a Ukrainian missile than by your own incompetence. So if Ukraine is falsely claiming credit they should be taking it as a propaganda godsend.
- SergeAx 5y ago
  First claims of missile strike was from Ukrainian side way before even radio monitoring OSINT kicked in. So it seems that Ukrainians knew about that cigarette fire on the ship the moment it started 50-150 km from the shore and reported it as their war victory. Coincidence? I don't think so.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Ukraine announced the strike before Russia announced anything was wrong though.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    That’s probably right. It just sounds so outlandish to make up a lie to make yourself look bad. Maybe there’s something about Russian military culture that the rest of us don’t understand, where being killed by the enemy is a much bigger loss of face than killing yourself.
    - yks 5y ago
      Their current war is based on the propaganda of Russian superiority over Ukrainians, military superiority specifically since Russians built their whole modern ideology on winning WWII. Admitting that Ukrainians are capable of anything is therefore undercutting this foundational national idea.

sitkack 5y ago

All sides of war are such an incredible waste.

dotopotoro 5y ago
Kind of true, but only one of the sides is instigator, and tries to repeat kaliningrad‘s cleansing.
- HKH2 5y ago
  Patrick Lancaster is one of the few people who do journalism on the ground in the Donbass region. He shows clear shell damage to civilian targets and interviews people and they say that they are being shelled by Ukrainians.
  - dralley 5y ago
    Even if we were to take that as 100% truth, how would it make Ukraine the instagator? Russia invaded the Donbas region years ago and there has been an ongoing shooting war (albeit a largely stalemated one) ever since. But Russia is still responsible for starting the war.
    - HKH2 5y ago
      The current war did not start in a vacuum. Who backed the Maidan revolution in 2014? Who backed the regime change that just happened in Pakistan? Who keeps fighting for regime changes all over the Middle East leading to the deaths of millions? Who is going to be held accountable for all that needless loss of life?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
drakonka 5y ago
Except for the side defending its country from an invasion.
5y ago

WJW 5y ago

More like being "sank while being towed" I think? (edit: original title was "Cruiser 'Moskva' sank while towing") Anyway, as a former navy officer it looks very bad that the flagship of a fleet was apparently sunk by a anti ship missile (ASM) strike. Certainly in NATO navies you always keep a layered defense for your high value targets and while the Neptune ASM is very modern, the flagship should definitely not have been the first to be sunk. This will be (should be) a wake up call for the rest of the fleet and keep them much further from the shore, which in turn has impact on the amount of air control the Russians can exert on the southern parts of Ukraine as apparently they have been leaning on navy vessels to provide SAM cover.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> More like being "sank while being towed" I think? (edit: original title was "Cruiser 'Moskva' sank while towing") Fun fact: in early modern English, "towing" was the correct passive participial form, and "being towed" was ungrammatical.
- WJW 5y ago
  Wow, TIL! How would the early English have expressed "towing" in the active sense though?
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    The same way. You'd have to make the distinction through context. read (a little) more: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2903 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2903
tim333 5y ago
Some info off twitter >So how did Ukraine do it? Early reports suggest a brilliantly effective combination of tactics, strategy and the exploitation of its own capabilities, combined with awareness of Russian weaknesses >According to early reports, the attack took place during a storm. This would have made flying difficult but also helps to conceal shore-based activity from observation. The Russians wouldn't have seen the preparations >Reportedly, the Ukrainians used a Bayraktar TB-2 drone to distract the Moskva. The Ukrainian Navy introduced TB-2s into service in August 2021. >How did the Russians not see the incoming Neptunes? The Moskva has/had a single main air defence radar - a 3P41 Volna phased array to guide S300 missiles. Problem is, it only has a 180 degree field of vision >360 degree coverage is provided by MR-800 Voshkod/Top Pair 3-D long range air search radars for shorter-range SA-8 missiles. But it's likely that in the storm, they couldn't distinguish the sea-skimming Neptunes from the wavetops. So likely a Bayraktar distracting on one side while the missiles were camouflaged by the storm waves. Quite cunning really. More info: https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1514498197489659909 https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1514498197489659909

akimball 5y ago

Nah, it was upgraded to a submarine.

bambax 5y ago
All ships can go under water. Some can resurface.
seandoe 5y ago
Oh sinking? That's not a bug
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sebastianconcpt 5y ago
You are supremely correct comrade!

riffic 5y ago

uh, tass.ru is not the most unbiased of sources here. Why are we linking to it and not say, someone a bit more neutral (for example, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva#Sinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva#Sinking)

IMTDb 5y ago
Because the fact that it is relayed by a pro-putin newspaper is significant. This was is also an information war, so analysing who reports the news is almost as important as what is reported.
- riffic 5y ago
  TASS is a news agency, like Reuters or AP, not a newspaper. While it's significant, it's also propaganda. At the very least, WP has a policy to maintain a neutral point of view and to only put things on the site which can be reliably sourced. We should be sensitive to the power of a site like this in relaying harmful propaganda.
  - MichaelBurge 5y ago
    Harmful propaganda is good and informative if even it confirms the ship sunk. If Ukraine or some US news agency announced it, I wouldn't believe it. But now even Russia is admitting it - so it's as good as confirmed to me that Ukraine sank their ship.
    - riffic 5y ago
      this shouldn't be linked directly to from HN. Let others report what TASS is reporting.
jakubadamw 5y ago
You're right, TASS is a Russian state press agency transmitting official propaganda but what this is an example of is Russians admitting their own loss. It rarely happens in this war, which makes this all the more interesting.

gvb 5y ago

Quote from the Moscow-based think tank, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies: “The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva cruiser, was indeed attacked by the Neptune anti-ship missiles from the coastline between Odessa and Mykolaiv,” it said, adding that a drone distracted the ship before the missiles hit. [emphasis mine] Ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/ukraine-russian-missile-cruiser-moskva-warship/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/ukraine-russ...

Arrath 5y ago
As the ship was host to a S-300F system, roughly analogous to the US's AEGIS missile defense, getting distracted by a single drone sounds like it should be yet another black eye in this whole chain of events.
- dathinab 5y ago
  What if, just hypothetical, it was a swarm. (I don't think it was in this case). I mean private persons can use drone swarms to put pictures on the night sky. And while they are rout pre-programmed, it's not hard to use a template to very fast pre-program a drone swarm to fly some pseudo randomized pattern around a ship of which the position is known.
  - weeblewobble 5y ago
    Likely not a consumer class drone/quadcopter like what you're picturing, but a combat drone (basically a small airplane) like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2
- favorited 5y ago
  The analysis I saw noted that their air defense only had a 180-degree range. So a drone could be used to distract their defense, get it pointed away from the Neptune launcher, then fire from the ship's blind spot.
newsclues 5y ago

Barrera 5y ago

By any measure, the war is going very badly for Russia. None of its claimed aims have been met, and the sinking adds to a long line of apparent military defeats. This raises the question of what comes next if this kind of thing keeps happening. What does Russia do? Russia appears to have staked the farm on this operation. Can it afford anything less than total victory? The Russian military has made a sizable investment in tactical nuclear weapons with allegedly 2,000 of them on hand [1]. These small weapons can be detonated in ways that produce minimal fallout but lots of destruction [2]: > A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be targeted at the enemy interior away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. With every conventional defeat faced by the Russian military and with the massive loss of credibility this causes, at what point does Russia decide that it's time to take the gloves off? [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon

paxys 5y ago
Unless they are also planning to nuke the rest of the planet, there is no "victory" in that scenario.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fmajid 5y ago
  Nuking Kyiv would probably kill more Russians and Belarusians than Ukrainians from the fallout.
- Barrera 5y ago
  The elimination of large chunks of the Ukrainian army in a single detonation could lead to the stated goal of the invasion, which was regime change in Kyiv. It would be a calculated risk that the response from the West would be much like it has been so far. We're not talking "The Day After," but more like a really big bomb and 2,000 more where that came from. The response to the invasion has been fragmented at best, and it's not unreasonable to think that would continue, especially given a county that has demonstrated a willingness to use nuclear weapons in battle. I'm not saying this is likely, but more speculating as to what series of events would cause the scenario to play out.

j15e 5y ago

Why is there no image of the sinking ship? Because at sea in war zone? Wouldn't Ukrainian army want to show image from their drone after hit? New satellite image coming soon?

toast0 5y ago
(Publicly accessible) satellite images weren't immediately available because of cloudy conditions, from what I read on news reports about the incident.
- enriquto 5y ago
  There are surely satellite SAR images available, though.
matkoniecz 5y ago
> Wouldn't Ukrainian army want to show image from their drone after hit? Why they would? Minor benefits and some important info would leak. And they likely have many important tasks right now leaving PR for other people.
dotopotoro 5y ago
Drone possibly was scrificial. Satellite is not on demand and not in ukraine possession and would not show much after moscow sank.
pvarangot 5y ago
Apparently it sank during a storm so probably getting visual confirmation to share was though. The drone was used to distract the radar, probably got shot down.

AdamH12113 5y ago

English version: https://tass.com/russia/1438045 https://tass.com/russia/1438045

dang 5y ago
Changed from https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14383383 https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14383383. Thanks!

breck 5y ago

Interesting read from just 7 days ago: "Russia’s Most Powerful Warship In The Black Sea Is Operating In A Pattern" https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/russias-most-powerful-warship-in-the-black-sea-is-operating-in-a-pattern/ https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/04/russias-most-po...

jacquesm 5y ago
That is indeed interesting. But I would assume that the satellite coverage over the area is at least as good if not substantially better and that that data reaches Ukraine as fast as it can be collected and passed on.

rixrax 5y ago

Couple of questions that I remain curious about now that sinking has been confirmed: 1. Did it go to a bottom with some nuclear warheads onboard? What is going to happen to these? (Slava class is nuclear strike capable[0]) 2. It was the flagship of the BS fleet. This I have been told implies admiral and their staff on board. Any news of the fate of the fleet staff? 3. Is there any news beyond 'all were evacuated' of the fate of the crew? Some news said Turkish navy managed to rescue ~50 sailors. What about the rest ~450[1]? [0] https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/ukraines-next-nightmare-russias-slava-class-cruisers-are-threatening-odessa/ https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/ukraines-next-nightmare-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava-class_cruiser

Qub3d 5y ago
Regarding (1), any nuclear weapons may just remain on the sea floor. For one, we've had nukes lost before by accident (called a "broken arrow" incident in US military) and its estimated around 50 have been lost at sea and never recovered[0]. The thing is, water is a really good radiation shield, and nuclear weapons must execute an extremely precise series of actions to detonate. It may actually be safest to just leave them put. [0]:http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml

bastardoperator 5y ago

Sounds like you could sink all these ships pretty easily if a single drone kicked this entire chain of events off.

ceejayoz 5y ago
There was also severe weather, and the Neptunes are sea-skimming. Sounds like the Ukranians waited for the perfect shot, as there aren't many of the things.

a-b 5y ago

Burn in hell!

travisgriggs 5y ago

Two questions. US ships usually have phalanx defensive systems for anti missle deterrents. I’ve always heard these are pretty effective as long as their active and not overwhelmed. Does the Russian navy not possess these? Or do they, and it just didn’t work well?

foldr 5y ago
The Phalanx has an effective range of just under a mile. Even a subsonic surface-skimming missile could easily cover that distance in around 5 seconds. So it's very much a defense of last resort. Missiles should ideally be intercepted by anti-missile systems with much longer ranges.
ApostleMatthew 5y ago
Russia uses a similar system, the Kashtan CIWS. This article (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61103927 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61103927) indicates that the Moskva did have one installed, though I don’t know why it didn’t help in this case.
- subroutine 5y ago
  Drones are reported to have been used to harass the vessel and keep its air defences distracted before the missiles were fired from a hidden battery near Odessa. At least two of the missiles are then reported to have struck the ship – causing a massive explosion and inferno as they are believed to have detonated one of Moskova’s exposed deckside missile tubes. https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/sneaky-way-ukraine-distracted-russian-warship-moskva/news-story/4243404b1394fa2f18d44290afeabd9a https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/sneaky-way-ukraine-dist...

tomohawk 5y ago

Additional information: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-russias-black-sea-flagship-sinks https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-repo...

mkl95 5y ago

The ship was 40+ years old, although it was going to be used until 2026. How common is it for warships to be that old?

mikeyouse 5y ago
Very common.. US Ticonderoga class cruisers were first commissioned in 1983, so they're all ~40 years old. We're in the process of decommissioning some of them now, but many will likely still be sailing in 2040. Often times older ships get retrofit with the latest defense/offense capabilities and new propulsion if there's something they'd benefit from. Ohio and Los Angeles class submarines were mostly built in the 1980s as well and many / most (?) are still active. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  In a technical sense, the USS Constitution, first launched in 1797, remains a commissioned ship of the US Navy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution Though more generally, US warships seem to have a roughly 40 year service life. The second-longest active commission belongs to the USS Pueblo, still officially on patrol, and commissioned in 1945. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2) Otherwise, the oldest active ship in normal duty appears to be the amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge (1970), the oldest carrier the USS Nimitz (1975), and the oldest submarine the USS Ohio (1981). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_United_States_Navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_U...
mannerheim 5y ago
It was actually supposed to remain in service until 2040: https://tass.com/defense/1174875 https://tass.com/defense/1174875

anikan_vader 5y ago

To put things in perspective, this was the only capital ship being operated in the Black Sea (by any navy). Russia is the only Black sea power that fields cruisers (or even destroyers), and the only warships they now have officially on duty in the Black Sea are frigates or smaller. In terms of capital ships, this leaves them with one battlecruiser and two cruisers in operational condition, none of which have access to the Black Sea. (Their sole aircraft carrier is under repairs). The only other loss of a warship of comparable size in combat since WW2 was the ARA General Belgrano, a slightly smaller cruiser sunk by a British sub in 1982. Losing a surface ship to enemy action is just not common these days. For a little more context, the only currently commissioned US naval vessel to have sunk an enemy ship is the USS Constitution, which sank the HMS Java (and more famously the HMS Guerriere) in 1812.

fmajid 5y ago
Turkey’s closed the Bosporus to military ships under the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention. It’s not as if any Russian ships could even get into the Mediterranean anyway.
- yucky 5y ago
  They could build them in a port there, no? Maybe Sevastopol?

trasz 5y ago

Not directly related, but I find Safari’s automatic translation invaluable for following this war - because I can read the “other side’s” media instead of looking for “our media” to pick up a story. The one built into Telegram is useful too, but terribly unreliable. And boy, what’s happening there… Russians are getting increasingly aware of the situation, and they are calling for blood. And I don’t mean (just) Ukrainian blood.

tkgally 5y ago

The following paragraph in a Guardian article caught my eye: “It is the most significant naval vessel to be sunk since the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed by a British submarine, HMS Conqueror in 1982. It is the first time Moscow has lost a cruiser since German planes sunk the Chervona Ukraina (Red Ukraine) in 1941 at Sevastopol – the same Crimean naval base which the Moskva was being towed towards when it sank.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/russia-moskva-cruiser-sunk-stormy-seas-defense-ministry https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/14/russia-moskva-...