Ukrainian officials said their forces had hit the boat with rockets, while Russia acknowledged that a fire had broken out in Moskva but no attack. US and other Western officials could not confirm what caused the blaze.
The loss of the so-called warship to the Russian capital is a catastrophic symbolic defeat for Moscow as its troops regroup for a new offensive in eastern Ukraine after retreating from much of the north, including the capital.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the ship sank in a storm while being towed in port. Russia had earlier said that the flames on the ship, which usually carried 500 sailors, forced the entire crew to evacuate. He later said the fire had been contained and that the ship would be towed to port with its rocket launchers intact.
The ship can carry 16 long-range cruise missiles and its removal from the battle reduces Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea. It is also a blow to Russian prestige in a war that is already widely regarded as a historic blunder. Now in its eighth week, the Russian invasion has stopped due to resistance by Ukrainian militants reinforced by weapons and other aid sent by Western nations.
The news of the flagship damage overshadowed Russian claims of progress in the southern port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainians have been fighting since the first days of the invasion in some of the fiercest fighting – at a horrific cost to civilians.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday that 1,026 Ukrainian soldiers had been handed over to a metal factory in the city. But Vadim Denishenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, denied the allegations, telling Current Time TV that “the battle for the port is still going on today.”
It was not clear how many forces were still defending Mariupol.
Russian state television broadcast footage saying he was from Mariupol and showed dozens of men in camouflage walking with their hands up and carrying others on stretchers. A man was holding a white flag.
The occupation of Mariupol is crucial for Russia, as it will allow its forces in the south, which arrived through the annexed Crimean peninsula, to fully connect with troops in the eastern Donbass region, the industrial heart of Ukraine and the target of the forthcoming attack.
The Russian military continues to move helicopters and other equipment together for such an effort, according to a senior U.S. defense official, and will likely add more ground combat units “in the coming days.” But it is still unclear when Russia could launch a larger attack on Donbas.
Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukraine in Donbas since 2014, the same year Russia invaded Crimea. Russia has recognized the independence of the rebel areas in Donbas.
The loss of Moskva could delay any new, wide-ranging attack.
Maksym Marchenko, governor of the Odessa region across the Black Sea northwest of Sevastopol, said the Ukrainians hit the ship with two Neptune missiles and caused “serious damage”.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, called it a “colossal event.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said that ammunition on the aircraft was fired as a result of fire, without mentioning what caused the fire. He said the “main missile weapons” were not damaged. In addition to cruise missiles, the warship also had air defense missiles and other artillery.
Neptune is an anti-ship missile recently developed by Ukraine based on an older Soviet design. The launchers are mounted on trucks near the coast and, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the missiles can hit targets up to 280 kilometers away. That would have put Moskva in range, based on where the fire started.
The United States has not been able to confirm Ukraine’s claims of a warship strike, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday. However, he described it as “a major blow to Russia”.
“They had to choose between two stories: One was that they were just incompetent and the other was that they were attacked, and neither is a good result for them,” Sullivan told the Economic Club of Washington.
In the early days of the war, The Moskva was said to have been the warship that called on Ukrainian soldiers stationed on the Black Sea island of Snake to surrender in a confrontation. In a widely circulated recording, the soldier replies: “Russian warship, go (explosively) alone.”
The AP has not been able to independently verify the incident, but Ukraine and its supporters see it as an iconic moment of contempt. The country recently unveiled a stamp in her honor.
Russia invaded on February 24 and may have lost thousands of fighters. The conflict has killed countless Ukrainian civilians and forced millions more to flee.
It also pushes up prices for groceries and petrol pumps, as Ukraine and Russia are major producers of crops and energy, while straining the global economy. The head of the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday that the war had helped the agency downgrade economic forecasts for 143 countries.
Also Thursday, Russian authorities accused Ukraine of sending two low-flying military helicopters across the border and firing on residential buildings in the village of Klimovo in Russia’s Bryansk region, about 11 kilometers from the border. Russia’s Investigative Committee says seven people, including a small child, were injured.
Russia’s state security service had earlier reported that Ukrainian forces fired mortars at a border crossing in Bryansk as they were crossing the border, forcing them to flee.
The reports could not be independently verified. Earlier this month, Ukrainian security officials denied that Kyiv was behind an airstrike on an oil depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, about 55 kilometers from the border.
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Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.
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