The Ukrainians struck a major Russian ship. Without it, the entire fleet is vulnerable, says the general – HNonline.sk

The Russian cruiser Moscow seriously damaged the explosion of ammunition, which caused a fire on board, the TASS agency reported today, referring to the Russian Ministry of Defense. According to the ministry, the crew of this flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet managed to evacuate. The governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region previously said that the vessel was hit by Ukrainian missiles. According to Russia, the origin of the fire is being investigated. We talked to Defense Minister Jaroslav Naďa about the delivery of the S-300 air defense to Ukraine and about speculations about the possible delivery of Mig fighters to our eastern neighbor: “Ammunition exploded as a result of a fire at the Moscow cruiser. The ship was seriously damaged. The entire crew was evacuated. “Said the ministry of defense. The cruiser was hit by Ukrainian missiles Governor of the Odessa region Maksym Marchenko said on Wednesday evening that the cruiser was hit by Ukrainian missiles. Oleksij Arestovyč, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, also spoke earlier about the fire on board Moscow. Their claims cannot be independently verified. Source: Reuters Moscow cruiser in a satellite image from April 10 northwest of the port of Sevastopol. Satellite images from the American company Maxar Technologies showed that the cruiser was located northwest of the Crimean port of Sevastopol on April 10. Its current location cannot be determined by satellite due to a major storm over the Black Sea, the CNN portal wrote. The Unian agency noted that the cruiser Moscow, which is described by foreign media as the best-equipped and most important ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, became infamous at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The crew of this vessel then called on the Ukrainian defenders of Hadie Island to surrender. However, the Ukrainian soldiers refused in indiscriminate words. “Russian warships, go to hell,” said one of the Ukrainians. The problem for the entire fleet The retired Slovak general and chairman of the ODS non-parliamentary political party Pavel Macko called the destruction of the Moscow cruiser a hard blow to Russia. “This is extremely bad news for the Black Sea Fleet. It was this ship that was supposed to provide missile defense for the fleet in addition to the command,” he said in a statement on Facebook, adding that it was a major vessel whose loss would hurt the Russians. Source: Reuters Moscow cruiser on a satellite image from April 7 in the port of Sevastopol. Macko also named the equipment the ship had at its disposal. These are 16 fixed launchers for anti-ship missiles P-1000, 64 vertical containers for missiles of the air defense system S-300 and launchers for 40 pieces of Axis missiles for air protection of the ship itself and a variety of weapons. The equipment was supplemented by torpedo chambers and a helicopter. “It was this rocket-laden ship that was supposed to be the best protection for the entire fleet against Ukrainian attacks. Without this ship, the fleet will be significantly more vulnerable. The possibility of a naval landing at Odessa is thus significantly reduced,” the retired general added. After several military failures in Ukraine, he said, this is another embarrassing news for the Russian army. Moscow is not the first Russian warship to be damaged during the current war. On March 24, the Ukrainian army announced that it had destroyed a Russian landing craft in the port of Berdyansk in the Sea of ​​Azov. Originally, it was said of Orsk, later specified information states that it was a Sarat ship of the same class. It damaged two other vessels during the attack. At the beginning of March, the Ukrainians also informed about the sinking of another ship involved in the attack on Snake Island, which was to sink near Odessa. However, according to the media, the patrol boat Vasily Bykov was later seen in the port of Sevastopol, without signs of damage. Moscow Cruiser The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, originally used in the Soviet Navy as the Slava, was renamed in the 1990s. Missile cruisers have been among the most powerful ships of the Soviet and Russian navies since the 1960s, their main weapons being anti-ship missiles with a flat flight path and anti-aircraft guided missiles (especially the naval version of the S-300 system). The cruiser began construction at shipyards in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, as the first ship of its class (Project 1164 Atlant, designed mainly to fight the enemy’s surface fleet) in 1976, and was commissioned by the Soviet Navy in January 1983. The ship was used for accommodation in December 1989, for example. members of the Soviet delegation during the summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in Malta. At the turn of the century, Moscow was modernized, then deployed in 2008 during the conflict with Georgia over South Ossetia, and since 2013 Russia has also used it as part of its forces deployed in Syria.