Russia's Black Sea flagship is out of the fight

(MENAFN- Asia Times)

In a development that will see fists pumped in any bar in which Ukrainians drink, the Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of its vaunted Black Sea fleet, has been abandoned, with its munitions on fire.

It cannot be confirmed what fate befell the 11,500-ton vessel. Russian media admitted the ship had been seriously damaged and abandoned by her crew, suggesting an onboard accident. But Ukrainians claim it was hit by shore-based anti-ship missiles.

If so, that would be a spectacular success for Ukrainian forces, particularly as the Moskva was especially hated in Ukraine.

The loss of such a high-profile man-of-war to enemy fire would be both a humiliation for Moscow and could have massive strategic implications for Kiev.

Widespread speculation has it that one of the many aims of the multipronged Russian offensive was to seize Ukraine's entire Black Sea coast and the port of Odessa. Such an operation would transform Ukraine into a landlocked country and cripple its economy.

However, the deployment of anti-ship missiles – and regardless of the fate of the Moskva, the UK has vowed to supply US-made Harpoons, which have a range of 140-kilometers – could prove as deadly for Russian ships as shoulder-launched rockets have been for Russian talks and helicopters.

While the latter weapons can be replenished from armories in Russia, the Black Sea Fleet cannot be reinforced. In February, Turkey closed the Bosphorous Strait, which links the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the world's oceans.

These factors make any seaborne assault hugely perilous for Moscow, and indeed, could deny much of the Black Sea to Russian warships.

So an Odessa assault now looks both over-ambitious and low-priority.

Russia failed to capture, or even successfully invest, key cities in Ukraine's north, while fighting rages on separate fronts in the east and south. This points to over-stretched resources, and Kremlin war planners drawing up their“special military operation” overlooked the critical military principle of concentration of force.

With supreme commander General Alexander Dvornikov having been appointed to oversee a dislocated war, military logic would suggest doubling down on the most mission-critical areas. That means consolidating the Crimea-Russia Azov Sea corridor and seizing the Ukraine-held western Donbas.

Dvornikov has his work cut out.

On one hand, the spring thaw, which turns the ground to mud and removes off-road operations, does not end until mid-May.

On the other hand, multiple countries are feeding more arms to Ukraine. They include the US, which has finally overcome its aversion to handing over heavy weapons. Its latest US$800 million package includes heavy artillery and legacy armored personal carriers.

The Moskva was the lead ship of the Project 1164 Atlant class of guided missile cruisers in the Russian Navy. It was also used in the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. Photo: WikiCommons  A blow to pride

Not only does the Moskva bear the name of the Russian capital, but she is also the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, based in the Crimean naval base of Sevastopol. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 and since the days of the Czars, admirals have considered the Black Sea a virtual Russian lake.

The Moskva, with a 500-man crew, is a big-ticket item. Cruisers, the class of warship larger than destroyers, are fielded only by a handful of fleets. The British, French and Japanese navies, for example, do have them.

The loss of the Moskva – assuming she cannot be recovered – leaves a hole in the Black Sea fleet. Though that force deploys amphibious ships and a range of submarines, it fields no other cruisers, or even a single destroyer. The next-largest surface warships in its order of battle are frigates.

Two other Russian cruisers, believed to be operating in the Mediterranean , are unable to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet due to the closure, on February 28, of the Bosphorous and Dardanelles straits by Turkey to warships. Although Turkey permits warships to return to home ports, those two cruisers are based with Russia's Northern and Pacific fleets, so cannot traverse the straits.

On March 2, Ankara denied Moscow's requests to move warships not based in the Black Sea through the straits. Though the implications of this were overlooked at the time, that leaves only Russia's small Caspian Flotilla – a handful of frigates and corvettes – to reinforce its Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine.

Unsurprisingly, Russian media has been terse on the Moskva's loss.

“A fire caused a blast of the broadside munitions,” TASS reported from Moscow in a brief, three-paragraph bulletin that did not make the front page of the news agency's website.“The ship received serious damage.”

Quoting the Defence Ministry, TASS said the“the crew was evacuated” and“a probe is underway.”

That last line suggests non-operational damage, and indeed, the post-Soviet Russian Navy has suffered some disastrous own goals.

In 2002, the giant nuclear submarine Kursk sank on exercise with all hands. In 2018, Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, was put out of action by a series of accidents during a refit. A floating dock sank, a crane collapsed and a fire broke out aboard. The vessel is unlikely to become operational before 2023.

But was the Moskva's misfortune simply another accident? Ukrainian sources have claimed credit for the sinking of a vessel that is especially despised.

She is reportedly the warship that radioed the garrison on Snake Island, off Odessa, with a demand to surrender in the war's first hours. That demand prompted a defiant response from the Ukrainian garrison –“Russian warship, go fuck yourself” – that has since become legendary.

“It has been confirmed that the missile cruiser Moskva today went exactly where it was sent by our border guards on Snake Island,” Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko said via social media .“Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage to the Russian ship.”

The Neptune is a Ukrainian variant of the Soviet Kayak anti-ship missile.

If Ukrainian forces did take out the ship, it would not be the first.

On March 24, a Russian landing ship was destroyed, apparently by Ukrainian missiles, while unloading at the dock in Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov. In dramatic footage posted on YouTube, other Russian ships immediately evacuated the harbor and made seaward as the victim blazed.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson walk around the center of Kiev. Photo: WikiCommons A blow to operations

But that was a landing ship. If a cruiser was destroyed by shore-fired, home-grown missiles, it suggests the fleet's missile defenses are not fit for purpose.

Adding to Russian admirals' white hairs is the promise by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky over the weekend to send US-designed Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Ukraine.

Given that it has lost the entire Azov seaboard to Russian forces, Ukraine is desperate to hang on to its Black Sea coastline and has repeatedly asked Western powers for anti-ship missiles to counter the Russian vessels that dominate the sea and have been bombarding the land.

If delivered in numbers and deployed in a front along the Black Sea coast and protected against aerial attack – the missiles can be fired from land launchers, trucks and helicopters – the Ukrainians could feasibly deny the northern Black Sea to Russian naval units.

Great secrecy surrounds the workings of the Western arms pipeline into Ukraine, and there is no information on any movement of Harpoons. But website Intellinews, adding no details, reported that British Harpoons arrived in Odessa on April 1.

And before the loss of the Moskva, a report in specialist media Small Wars Journal entitled Why Russia's Ukraine Navy War in Ukraine is Doomed or Irrelevant warned that the widespread deployment of anti-ship missiles could force the Black Sea fleet to retreat to the south.

That would be a huge blow for Moscow, particularly given the minuscule size of the Ukrainian navy and the historical prestige invested in the Black Sea Fleet.

But there are other reasons for the Russian High Command to turn its eyes away from Odessa.

Russian ground forces have already been blocked on the land route into Odessa at the town of Mykolaiv. An amphibious landing is always a high-risk operation, and in the teeth of anti-ship missiles, could be suicidal.

And Moscow has other priorities in this war, for Phase 1 has not gone according to plan.

The world's largest cargo plane was one of the victims of heavy fighting in the early days of the invasion. Photo: Facebook. Action on all fronts

Elite Russian airborne forces ran into furious combat in the war's first days on the outskirts of Kiev. The failure of their attempted decapitation of the Zelenesky government in the war's first days led to a more deliberate strategy of investing in key cities in the north.

That strategy also failed. Russian armored forces, channeled by soft ground onto the road network, proved easy pickings for Ukrainian drones and infantry in ambushes in the woods, villages and towns. It also became clear that Russian forces were undermanned and unable to cover or secure the vast distances.

In the east, Russian forces have been engaged in grinding combat against the main-force Ukrainian military, deployed against Russian separatists in eastern Donbas since 2014. They have made some territorial gains, but no significant breakthrough.

The battered airborne and armored battlegroups that were withdrawn from the north are now regrouping and refitting for a new and potentially decisive offensive that looks set to cut off the entire Donbas region.

Meanwhile, Russian units in the south have enjoyed the most success. They have taken the key town of Kherson, which supplies Crimea with water.

The most intense combat of the war has been taking place in Mariupol, the only significant city Russian forces have stormed. There, the Russians' most experienced light infantry – the Chechens and Donbas militia – have been battling for six weeks.

Ukraine's Azov Brigade. Photo: Facebook Last stand

Though the defenders, cut off and surrounded and with no relief force nor any breakout route, have been resisting ferociously, the end looks near. For the first time in this war, reporters from Western mainstream media, including France24 and Reuters, have had offers to be embedded with the Donbas militia fighting for the city.

Russian media reports have run footage of what they say are more than 1,000 surrendered Ukrainian Marines.

The final stage of the battle for Mariupol looks set to be the capture of the vast Azovstal steel plant, a battlespace that echoes the meat grinder battles that took place in ruined factory complexes in Stalingrad in World War II.

The factory complex is apparently riddled with underground facilities, which may explain reports of chemical weapons being used to ferret out defenders.

It is defended by the elite Avoz Regiment. A controversial, hardcore unit as it contains far-rightists, its members can expect little mercy from Russia, which may anticipate a propaganda windfall if neo-Nazis are captured alive.

Yet the Azov Regiment, and the surviving Marines, are incredibly still hanging on after seven weeks of combat.

A social media post published on Wednesday showed the commanders of the 36th Marine Brigade and the Azov Regiment in a bunker or basement, saying they had regrouped and were determined to continue the fight.

Once Mariupol is in their hands, Russian forces can use its port facilities to reinforce and will have a key communications hub from which to anchor their northward offensive toward the Donbas.

But though the city looks set to fall imminently, new shipments of arms sent by countries including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK and the US are flooding into Ukraine as the big showdown in the Donbas shapes up.

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