Yesterday, April 14, the main topic on the agenda was the sinking of the ship "Moscow", the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This is not accidental, the ship, especially the flagship of the navy, can not be equated with a tank or plane. This is a very big event. Some reports even claim that Moscow is the largest warship to sink since World War II.

However, the Russian side has not yet acknowledged that the ship was shot down. The Defense Ministry said the cruiser suffered serious injuries as a result of an ammunition detonation due to a "cause under investigation." Ukraine claims that "Moscow" was hit by "Neptune" anti-ship missiles, which are their own production.

Speaking of "their own production", "Moscow" is also made in Ukraine. The missile cruiser, first named "Slava", was founded in 1976 at the Mykolayiv Shipyard, named after 61 Communards. The ship, 186.5 meters long, 20.8 meters wide, 42.5 meters high, and with a capacity of 11,490 tons, was commissioned in January 1983 and became part of the Black Sea Fleet.

The first historical event in which “Slava” took part was not about a military conflict, but about a rather positive moment. The ship was part of the Soviet leader's escort to the 1989 summit between George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev off the coast of Malta. The idea of holding a meeting at sea in December, the product of whatever mind it was, did not turn out to be very successful. Due to the problems caused by the storm, this meeting also went down in history as the "seasickness summit".

Some of the meetings were scheduled to take place on the “Slava” and part on the “Belknap” cruiser, the flagship of the US Sixth Fleet, but due to the storm, all meetings were held on the heavier cruise ship “Maxim Gorky”.

The ship returned to Mykolaiv in March 1991 and stopped for repairs. At the end of the year, the USSR collapsed, and then the question of the status of the Black Sea Fleet arose. On April 5, 1992, the President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk signed a decree "On the transfer of the Black Sea Fleet to the administrative subordination of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine." Two days later, Yeltsin signed an order "On the transfer of the Black Sea Fleet to the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation."

After a face-to-face meeting in Dagomys, the two presidents rescinded their orders and decided to negotiate the division of the fleet. Finally, in June 1995, the Black Sea Fleet was divided between the two states and "Slava" reached Russia (not to mention that nothing was given to Georgia at that time).

At the time, the ship was still under repair due to lack of funding. The shipbuilders of Mikolayiv did not want to repair the cruiser, which had already become a foreign state ship. In order to pay off the debt, the Russian side used various methods, including the delivery of the AK-630 artillery weapons to Ukraine. The repairs were completed only in 1999. After that, the ship's name was changed.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet included an anti-submarine cruiser called "Moscow". The cruiser became obsolete and was sold to India in 1996 as scrap metal. After that, the ship "Slava" was renamed as "Moscow" and chosen as the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. In 1998, the naval guard ship "Krasny Kavkaz" was sold to the scrap metal, and to continue the tradition, "Moscow" was given the honorary title of guard.

"Moscow" entered Georgian territorial waters in 2008 during Russia's Five-Day War against Georgia. It is not known exactly what the ship did, but it is known that Russian ships sank two Georgian boats in that war. It is also known that after the war, President Medvedev thanked the staff of "Moscow" for their "courage and self-sacrifice."

During the 2014 occupation of Crimea, "Moscow" and other Russian ships blocked the ships of the Southern Naval Base of Ukraine, trying to leave the Gulf of Donuzlav and go to Odessa. Alexander Vitko, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, asked them to swear an oath to the "Crimean people," but was refused. Four ships sank, and the others got into the hands of Russians after some resistance. A year later, most of them were returned to Ukraine, and three remained in Russia.

The cruiser has been stationed in the Mediterranean since September 2015, near the Latakia region of Syria. It was tasked with providing air defense to the Russian aviation group based in Latakia. In January 2016, it was replaced by the "Varyag" of the same type.

In 2016, Vladimir Putin signed a decree awarding the "Moscow" cruiser the Order of Nakhimov for "services to state security, high results in combat training, heroism and selflessness in training and combat missions."

The last military operation in which the cruiser took part was Russia's aggression against Ukraine. On the first day of the war, the "Vasily Bykov" patrol boat took part in the attack on the island of Zmiinyi. The attack was best remembered for a swear word uttered by a Ukrainian serviceman, which turned into a meme. It is said that the target of the word was "Moscow".

On the night of April 13, the head of the Odessa regional administration of Ukraine, Maxim Marchenko, announced that a fire had started on the “Moscow” cruiser due to the Neptune anti-ship missiles. Later, the Russian Defense Ministry admitted that it was seriously damaged in the fire as a result of ammunition detonation. However, the statement did not say whether the ship sank.

During the day on April 14, various versions about the fate of the ship were voiced. Russia said it did not sink, and even moved to the port of Sevastopol. Finally, at the end of the day, it was admitted that the ship sank "due to a storm" while being towed to Sevastopol ...

Translator: Gulnara Rahimova