The strike on the missile cruiser Moskva is just a harbinger of a change in the military situation in the region.
In recent weeks I have written repeatedly that the Black Sea Fleet would be a priority target of the new phase of the campaign. This was understandable from the military point of view: the fact of active operations of the Black Sea Fleet west of the Crimea is a constant threat of sea landing, more effective fire support to ground forces by reducing the flight time of subsonic cruise missiles, as well as the factor of threat to sea communications near Odessa, which is detrimental to both the Ukrainian economy and the Western economy (if, say, to the shipment of neon, needed by the global microelectronics industry, through the port). It is even more understandable from the point of view of media symbolism - the loss of ships is always perceived by the public more tangibly than the loss of entire units; this fact is perfectly confirmed by the current shock state of the Russian media sphere.
The attack on the Moskva was no accident or improvisation-the cruiser was chosen as a target for both technical and propaganda reasons. On the one hand it is the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, on the other hand it is a deeply outdated ship, worn out by long service and chronic underfunding.
The Moscow strike was well planned and considered: it was launched in stormy conditions, in order to complicate the ship's damage control and crew evacuation, and it was located far away from other ships of the Black Sea Fleet. According to the transponder information, only five boats of unknown type were able to approach to help the cruiser.
As I supposed earlier the operation was conducted in full cooperation of naval forces with the Alliance forces: thus, according to air monitoring of April 12 British spy plane RC-135 was active in the area of the Black Sea, and UAV RQ-4 Global Hawk flights were recorded at different times (map attached). On that day Alliance reconnaissance confirmed the presence of the Moskva, checked signatures and received comprehensive data on the location of other Russian Black Sea Fleet ships.
On April 13 (the day of the attack) some military magic happened - the data about the flights of RC-135 and RQ-4 was simply unavailable. The reason was that the reconnaissance airplanes flew with their transponders switched off, and the civilian airspace monitoring equipment could not detect them, which is more than a good reconnaissance sign.
The missile strike on the cruiser was carried out with the help of the missile system "Neptun" - a modern missile system, made with military microelectronics, manufactured in Western Europe (and, logically, it was able to receive external target designation from NATO reconnaissance aircraft). Various conspiracy theories about the use of Norwegian Penguin SLCMs are complete nonsense. This missile is intended only for air and sea carriers and, what is doubly important, it has an extremely limited range (34 km in the Mk2 mod).
Above I mentioned the poor technical condition of the "Moscow" - and this is no accident. Previously, the cruiser could not be repaired and maintained for several years, and the Ministry of Defense refused to upgrade it. In practice, this means that the Moskva was a ship with VERY outdated equipment and armament - the RSCC's ability to repel missile strikes raises reasonable questions. According to a number of reports, the attack on the cruiser also involved Bayraktar UAVs, which acted as a diversionary tactic.
At this point the fate of the Moskva is still unknown. I will not dispute the words of the Defense Ministry - I will only say that simultaneously claiming "detonation of ammunition" and "the ship is intact" is probably not the best move, given the nature of the RSCM design.
The Moskva incident, however, is deeply symbolic - it shows that a new campaign for control of the Black Sea has begun.
To conclude I will say the following: one should not scoff at the fact that Russia "opposes all the power of the West". So far the Russian Federation is confronting only the strategists, analysts, and spies of the Alliance.
And this confrontation leads us to very disappointing conclusions.
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