What will change for Russia after the sinking of Moskva
The cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, sank, possibly hit by Ukrainian missiles. It is a very important fact, but perhaps – says the analyst Margelletti of Cesi – it will not change the fate of the war. Here because
The Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday that the cruiser Moskva sank during a towing maneuver. The boat had previously been damaged by a fire and then by an explosion of ammunition, according to the Russian version; according to the Ukrainian army, however, the ship was hit by two Neptune-type missiles.
As CNN also writes, at the moment it is not possible to establish which of the two versions is true. Not even US intelligence, hitherto very well informed about the war in Ukraine and the Russian maneuvers, possesses reliable information.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MOSKVA CRUISER
Even regardless of the causes, the sinking of Moskva itself is a very significant fact, both from a symbolic and a concrete, military point of view: 186 meters long and with a crew of almost five hundred members, the cruiser was one of the warships most important of the Russian fleet, as well as flagship of that of the Black Sea.
BECAUSE THIS IS A HUGE LOSS FOR RUSSIA
Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, told CNN that "only the loss of a ballistic missile submarine or the Kuznetsov [the Russian aircraft carrier ] would have inflicted more damage on Russian morale and the Navy's reputation."
Alessio Patalano, who teaches warfare and military strategy at King's College London, explained to the broadcaster that the loss of Moskva is a "huge blow" to Russia, because the ships "are large floating chunks of national territory, and when lose one, and moreover a flagship, the political and symbolic message – in addition to the military loss – stands out for this ".
Moskva is the Russian ship of the famous episode of the island of the Serpents, in the Black Sea, when the crew of the cruiser ordered the surrender to some Ukrainian soldiers, who replied "fuck you".
THE NEPTUNE MISSILE
The Neptune anti-ship missile – the one Kiev claims to have launched at Moskva – is a Ukrainian-made weapon based on the Soviet KH-35 cruise missile. It entered service in the Ukrainian armed forces only last year and, if its role in the sinking of the cruiser is confirmed, it would be the first known use of the missile in warfare. It is a shore-based mobile cruise missile.
THE ANALYSIS OF MARGELLETTI
In La Stampa Andrea Margelletti, president of the Center for International Studies (Ce. SI), explained that the sinking of Moskva, despite the "great military and symbolic importance, […] will hardly lead to a total change with respect to the fate of the ongoing conflict ".
"The symbolic value of the action", continues Margelletti, "would also lie in the fact of having managed to hit, damage, render non-operational, and potentially sink the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, which is at the same time the most large located in the basin, as well as a unit whose name refers to that of the Russian capital. Among other things, a further note of interest, the Moskva was built in the shipyards of Mykolaiv, in Ukraine, a city attacked by Russian troops during the previous weeks ”.
According to the analyst, however, the cruiser will not be fundamental to the conflict because "it does not carry land-attack capable cruise missiles, the Kalibrs, which Russian forces are using to hit various targets in Ukraine and which are instead launched. from other, more modern and newly built naval units operating in the Black Sea. The small Ukrainian fleet was eliminated in the first days of the war, so the anti-ship capabilities of the Moskva were, at the time, unused. Even the anti-aircraft ones seem not to have been used in recent days, whereas the ship instead carried out an activity of presence, surveillance and patrolling of the waters south of Odessa, to protect the maritime spaces in front of the city ".
Moskva's contribution to the invasion, therefore, could have been that of a "naval umbrella" to protect Russian amphibious units in the event of a landing for the capture of the city of Odessa, which however does not seem to be in Moscow's immediate plans.
HOW WILL RUSSIA REACT?
According to Margelletti, Russia could respond to the sinking of Moskva with a missile attack against Odessa. The Russian armed forces, then, will probably pay more attention in their maneuvers in the Black Sea, but the priority of the military campaign would now be another: namely the capture of the Donbass, the region of eastern Ukraine.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/russia-affondamento-incrociatore-moskva-cosa-cambia/ on Fri, 15 Apr 2022 07:21:46 +0000.