Part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine | |
Date | 14 April 2022 |
---|---|
Location | East of Snake Island, Black Sea |
Coordinates | 45°10′43″N 30°55′31″E / 45.17861°N 30.92528°E |
Cause | Hit by two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles leading to a fire which caused munitions to explode |
Participants | Russian Navy Armed Forces of Ukraine |
Deaths | 18 killed (per Russian government) 40 killed (per Novaya Gazeta Europe) ~240 killed (per Naval News) 300 killed (per Business Insider) |
Non-fatal injuries | 200 injured (per Business Insider) |
Missing | 10 missing (per Official Russian sources)[1] |
The Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, was sunk by Ukrainian forces on 14 April 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials announced that their forces had hit and damaged it with two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles, and that the ship had then caught fire. The United States Department of Defense later confirmed this, and Russia reported that the ship had sunk in stormy seas after the fire reached munitions onboard and they exploded.
The cruiser is the largest Russian warship to be sunk in wartime since the end of World War II, and the first Russian flagship sunk since Knyaz Suvorov in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War.
Russia said that 396 crew members had been evacuated, with one sailor killed and 27 missing, but there are unverified reports of more casualties. At least 17 of the missing crew members were later declared dead by a court in Sevastopol.