These are probably the first authentic photos of the damaged flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation – the “Moskva” cruiser.

Militarnyi informs about this.

The photos that were released online, according to the authors, are showing the Russian “Moskva” missile cruiser after the hit of the Ukrainian “Neptune” anti-ship missiles.

Photos of the damaged vessel were published by the Oryx website, which runs the statistics of losses of the Russian army in the war with Ukraine.

Judging by the images taken by the bystanders, before going to the sea bottom, the Russian missile cruiser was still fighting the fire on its premises.

One of the pictures, which was taken from the ship that probably came to rescue “Moskva,” shows the burning cruiser leaning to the left side.

It can also be observed that before sinking, “Moskva” was burning from the inside, because in most of the visible windows, strong smoke can be seen, which suggests a large-scale fire interior.

Previously, on April 14, 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that the Russian cruiser “Moskva,” which had suffered damage to its hull the day before, sank.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the damaged vessel lost stability due to the storm and sank during an attempt of towing it to the homeport.

Ukrainian media and politicians claimed that on the evening of April 13th, the Russian cruiser was struck by two “Neptune” missiles of Ukrainian production.

On the night of April 14, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the fire onboard the cruiser. The report said that due to the fire on board, the cruiser’s ammunition detonated.

The Ministry of Defense did not name the cause of the incident, only stating that it is “identified.”

“Moskva” missile cruiser is a vessel that participated in the attack on the garrison of the Ukrainian island of Zmiynyi. It was in the radio conversations with the cruiser crew that the meme “Рускій воєнний корабль іді на хуй” (“Russian warship, go fuck yourself” – ed.) was born.

The “Moskva” missile cruiser was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. It is the vessel of project 1164 “Atlant.” It was first launched in Mykolayiv in 1979. The vessel had participated in the war against Georgia in 2008 and in Syria.

“Moskva” was the carrier of sixteen P-1000 heavy anti-ship missiles.