Photos and video of Moskva surface days after Russian warship sinks in Black Sea

A picture of the Russian Navy’s Moskva warship bursting into embers before sinking into the Black Sea has been confirmed to be genuine.

The first verified pictures of the damaged cruiser have surfaced online which show her listing to port, with smoke billowing from her midships section. The news comes a few days after Ukraine stated that it had sunk the ship in a missile attack.

Although the Kremlin acknowledged the loss of the vessel, it has claimed that the ship was destroyed by an onboard explosion instead of enemy weapons. Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, confirmed that the latest pictures show the warship being gutted by fire.

While speaking to a news outlet, he said that he examined the images and the placement of the radar, the canisters for the surface-to-air along with the surface-to-surface missiles and the hull form seem to confirm that they are of a Slava-class cruiser that could be the warship.

Moscow has not confirmed the authenticity of the pictures. Further details are still awaited on the same.

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Ukraine and Russia respond to how Moskva was destroyed

Ukraine and Russia agreed that the warship sank, although their stories of how it was destroyed are completely incongruous with one another.

Russia and Ukraine agreed that Moskva was destroyed (Image via GrangerE04117/Twitter)

Ukraine’s Operational Command South stated on April 14 that the warship started taking on water after being struck by Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles. The statement reads,

“In the Black Sea operational zone, Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles hit the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet – it received significant damage. A fire broke out. Other units of a ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink.”

Meanwhile, Russia claimed that an on-board ammunition storeboard explored and caused serious damage to the vessel. However, this version has been denied by a senior US defense official, citing military intelligence.

The number of Russian soldiers who died on the warship remains unknown. A newspaper reported that around 40 people were killed and others are missing.

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Public reactions on Twitter

As soon as the sinking of the ship was confirmed by experts, Twitter was flooded with people’s reactions:

The warship was previously deployed by Moscow in the Syrian conflict, where it supplied Russian forces in the country with naval protection. It is the second major vessel lost by Russia since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

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