Huge Russian Warship BLOWN UP With Fears Of 300 Dead ‘After Ukraine Missile Strike’

Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea has been severely damaged after being hit by missiles, a Ukrainian official has said this morning. Unconfirmed reports say 300 Russian sailors who were aboard may have died.

The Kremlin claims the Moskva missile cruiser was seriously damaged after ammunition on board the ship blew up but Ukraine says it was struck by two Neptune missiles.

There are conflicting reports from Ukrainian sources if the ship has been sunk.

The Telegram channel, Ishchi Svoikh, which was set up by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry to tell the relatives of the Russian military about their troops, reported the cruiser sank at roughly 3am local time.

Shortly before that, the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed the crew had evacuated but Ukrainian officials say that is “far from being the case.”

The message reads: “An effective rescue operation could not be carried out due to a storm, about 300 sailors died.“

A Ukraine official said the missile attack was the biggest blow to the Russian navy since World War 2.

The Neptune missile is an coastal anti-cruise ship missile that is capable of destroying naval ships in a range of 300km, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian ministry, said: “Usually, in cases of an explosion of ammunition on such a large surface ship between a quarter and half crew perishes.

“There were 510 [crew] on the Moskva. This means that between 125 to 300 died. Mothers of Russia, wait for the funeral and thank Putin.”

Elsewhere, Maksym Marchenko, governor of the region around the Black Sea port of Odesa, triumphantly claimed in an online post that the 12,500-tonne ship was hit by two missiles.

“Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage,” he said in an online post.

Michael Petersen, director of the Russia Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College, told the Radio 4’s Today programme about the news that the Russian vessel the Moskva has been seriously damaged.

He says that it is too early to know what happened but it appears to look like the “Ukrainians have managed to pull off a not-insignificant victory at sea”.

Mr Petersen said: “I think it’s one that has symbolic and military value as well.

“This is the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and it’s getting a bit long in the tooth but it is the symbol of Russian naval power in the Black Sea.”

He went on to explain that the Ukrainians had lost most of their navy to the Russians during the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and that this attack was “important symbolically”.

He continued: “Because after all of that, they are still able to strike at Russian military power in ways that will really hurt back in Moscow.”

He adds the “Russian navy may feel obligated to operate further off-shore now than they were previously”.