Russia said its Black Sea fleet flagship, the Moskva, will be towed back to port after an ammunition explosion occurred on board, which Ukraine claimed was caused by a successful missile strike.
The fire, which broke out on Wednesday, left the ship “seriously damaged,” the crew was evacuated, and the incident is now under investigation, said the Russian Defense Ministry, according to an English translation of a Russian state-run TASS report. Ukraine said its forces hit the ship with a Neptune medium-range cruise missile, which is primarily designed to attack warships.
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U.S. defense officials could not verify whether the ship was hit by a Ukrainian missile or the fire was started another way.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the Defense Department assesses there was “at least one explosion on this cruiser,” though he also cautioned that it is “not quite exactly sure what happened.” He added, “There is lots of things that can explode on navy warships that can cause extensive, major damage. Certainly, it could have been damage from external force, a missile or attack, or some kind [of] torpedo — something like that. It could also be something that happened inside the skin of ship.”
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“The explosion was sizable enough we picked up indications that other naval vessels around her tried to come to her assistance. That wasn’t apparently needed,” he added.
The ship is “making her own way now across the Black Sea” to Sevastopol, the largest city in the Crimean Peninsula, for repairs, Kirby explained.
The Pentagon assessed on Thursday morning that the ship was moving on its own, a senior defense official said, but by the afternoon, spokesman John Kirby told reporters that defense officials were not sure if that was the case. The official also noted that other Russian ships moved further south, away from the coast.
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This fire on the Moskva represents the latest road bump for the Russian military. In the seven weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, it has failed to achieve most of its objectives — mainly, the capture of Kyiv. Russian forces have now given up on that goal and have changed their attention to focus on the Donbas region.
