Remembering the Moskva: Russia’s Pride and Shame
Before April 2022, the Russian Navy in the Black Sea was thought to be untouchable. Not anymore.
The world has witnessed–with one hand tied to its back–more than 18 months of Russian terror in Ukraine. And after a series of military setbacks for the Kremlin, few things surprise anyone anymore.
Yet, of all the events in the timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war, few carry as much significance, shock, and strategic importance as the events of April 14, 2022. It showed the world that a fierce resistance could become even fiercer.
That day saw the Moskva, a Russian warship, mysteriously engulfed in flames, ultimately succumbing to its injuries and sinking two days later.
The untimely death of the Moskva not only dealt a crippling blow to the Kremlin’s hopes of an amphibious attack on the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, but also left a strained Russian Navy looking weaker than it already was. To put it in a wider perspective, it was the first loss of a Russian flagship since the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 and represents the most substantial loss of a Russian warship in enemy fire since World War II.
It is accurate–pre-2022–to say that the Soviet-built Slava-class guided-missile cruiser was one of the most powerful surface combatants in the world.
Displacing 12,500 tons with a length of 611 feet, it was built to independently engage and sink U.S. aircraft carriers–earning it the moniker “carrier-killer”–and was by far the largest vessel in the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet. Although not among the ships firing missiles at land-based targets in Ukraine, it provided cover for those that did. Its absence left the surviving ships in the fleet vulnerable to aerial and land-based attacks, necessitating a shift further away from Ukraine’s coast.
The Moskva was far from a shiny new toy. Built in 1980, the 42-year-old ship was decommissioned for a refit in 1990 before returning to service in 2000 as the “Moskva” and boasts armaments consisting of anti-ship missiles, short and long-range surface-to-air missiles, and torpedoes. And it was no novice either, having served in the 2008 Russo-Georgian conflict, the 2015 Syrian civil war, and the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.
Its loss left the world asking questions; mainly of “How?” Because what was previously deemed unsinkable had just been sunk under mysterious, yet laughable circumstances.
No one envisioned the mighty Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet, having her port side kissed by two relatively unknown land-based anti-ship missiles, much less to a country that was essentially navyless. On the latter, readers would recall that the Ukrainian navy lost most of its vessels–and some willing sailors–to Russia during the Crimean annexation of 2014.
The claim that the ship met its end at the hands–or nose in missiles’ case–of two Ukrainian-made land-based anti-ship cruise missiles known as Neptune, is one made by the Ukrainian defenders, although Russia asserts–and continues to–that a fire on the ammunitions depot and a subsequent storm sunk her while being towed.
Most members of the public–myself included–tend to lean towards the former as the more reliable and correct account of the two, the reasons being that, A: the Ukrainians gave their account hours before the Russians did so there was no way they would have made that up, and B: it is unlikely that a fire breaks out spontaneously–information that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) scarcely provided.
To properly grasp the magnitude of what befell the Russian Navy, it is pertinent to highlight the weapon systems onboard the Soviet-era cruiser.
The Moskva possessed two heavy anti-air cannons, six AK-630 30mm CIWS cannons, 16 P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship missiles (programmed to work in salvos to take out U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups), 64 S300F long-range air defense missiles, 40 Osa short-range surface-to-air missiles, 10 533mm torpedo tubes, three fire-control radars and two search radars that can look farther than 200 miles making it one of the hardest non-carrier ships to sink. In addition, it could carry a single helicopter, most likely the Kamov KA-25 to boost its anti-submarine warfare capabilities.
Given its deadly cache of weapons, radars, and missile defense systems, it seriously begs the question: Why wasn’t Moskva able to detect these threats and neutralize them on time? Was it due to the gross negligence of her crew? (some 500 men, the majority of whom are believed to have gone down with the ship) or was the ship a floating white elephant with none of those weapon systems to begin with?
The truth may remain elusive but the extent of degradation within the Russian military is not.
The lackluster reaction of the cruiser painted a broader picture of Russia’s preparedness in its military campaign and seriously questioned the credibility and efficiency of its military technology. Russia is one of the world’s largest exporters of military hardware (second only to the U.S. as of 2022) and the events unfolding throughout its disastrous invasion strongly suggest the likelihood of major arms procurers like India and China re-evaluating their current and future purchases.
“Sinking Moskva”-themed posters became popular in Ukraine and Western media spaces in the ensuing weeks and months.
As much as the West might want to be smug about Russia’s loss, it should do so with caution because the fate of the flagship stands both as a warning and a lesson to the world’s navies–particularly the American and Chinese–that no ship is invulnerable. America’s carrier strike groups patrolling the western Pacific now seem ever-vulnerable to cutting-edge Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles.
The successes registered by the Neptune, American-made Stinger and Javelin missiles, and the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone–the latter praised as a game-changer for being a thorn in the flesh of Russian armored columns–serve as an eye-opener on the importance of small, relatively cheap equipment in tipping the financial scales of war with a big power in the smaller one’s favor.
Their costs, when compared with the costs of their victims, is an unquestionable bargain. These are equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars to a few hundred taking out multimillion-dollar aircraft and tanks. The price tag of the Moskva, an estimated $750 million, surely caused a stir among the Russian political hierarchy on whether the financial costs of the ongoing war are worth the security guarantees.
Since then, the conflict has evolved drastically and several more Russian warships have been written off thanks to US-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles. But the clout–and dropping jaws–that came with the sinking of the Moskva remains unchallenged. The Ukrainian forces continue to revel in this bold victory, now etched in naval history as one of the most audacious victories, and the Russians still mourn the loss of their beloved cruiser as it sleeps at the bottom of the Black Sea.
In all the uncertainty surrounding the Moskva’s loss, one thing was–and still is–certain: U.S. aircraft carriers breathing a deep sigh of relief.
