Turkey wants to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine, while some other NATO members would like to see it drag on as a way to harm Russia, Ankara’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday in a TV interview. In a lengthy appearance on CNN Turk, Cavusoglu addressed Turkey’s decision not to sanction Moscow and why the Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine failed, among other things.
“There are countries within NATO that want the Ukraine war to continue. They see the continuation of the war as weakening Russia. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine,” Cavusoglu said.
While he did not name any names, US President Joe Biden said earlier this month that the conflict in Ukraine “could continue for a long time,” which was echoed by the former CIA chief of Russian operations.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a phone call with G7 leaders on Tuesday that the West is united in not allowing Russia to win and determined to “continue to arm the Ukrainian military so that it can continue to defend itself against [Russian] attack.”
Turkey has decided not to join the US-led sanctions against Russia because they are unilateral, unlike the “binding sanctions decided at the UN,” Cavusoglu told CNN Turk. Ankara articulated its position on the first day of the Ukraine conflict, which is to continue diplomatic contacts with both sides, as “a country that both sides trust.”
While Turkey did not expect much after the first Russia-Ukraine talks in Antalya, “hopes were high” after the follow-up talks in Istanbul, Cavusoglu revealed. However, Ukraine backtracked from the agreement reached there after images of the alleged massacre in Bucha, which Kiev blamed on Russian troops. Moscow has denied the allegations.
Cavusogly also shed light on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s demand for security guarantees from NATO.
“Nobody agrees with Zelensky’s request for NATO’s Article 5 guarantees,” the minister said, referring to the alliance’s famous mutual defense clause. “No country has accepted this proposal. The US, UK and Canada do not accept this either. Of course, Turkey does not accept this. In principle, no one opposes this guarantee, but the terms of it are not clear.”
Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
Russia’s economic crisis has lost some of its sting, buying more time for President Vladimir Putin at home as his military presses a new offensive in its war against Ukraine.
Even with a recession looming and inflation approaching 20%, the economy has for the moment defied the most dire forecasts. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s economists have seen enough upbeat signs to halve their forecast for a first-quarter contraction in gross domestic product to 5%.
The bleakest scenario hasn’t materialized in large part because Russia contained the spread of financial contagion with stiff capital controls while plentiful petrodollars helped the ruble recoup losses and put a leash on inflation. Still, the worst may be yet to come: Bloomberg Economics expects an annual decline in GDP of almost 10% this year.
Tighter Belt
Russian consumer spending is falling slower than drop during pandemic
Source: Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Sberbank
Weeks after the initial shock of the ruble’s collapse, runaway prices and the departure of hundreds of foreign companies, what awaits the consumer may be a long period of muddling through.
“Our lifestyle hasn’t changed much,” said Olga, an advertising manager and mother of two in the far east city of Khabarovsk.
Fears of scarcity initially prompted the 36-year-old to stock up for a month by buying grains, tinned meat and pasta. Prices for some cleaning products tripled, so she switched to a cheaper alternative.
The family put off plans to buy a second car or go on a vacation this year. But a new normal has set it, and so far it’s manageable, said Olga, asking to be identified only by first name to speak candidly about her situation.
“Not enough time has passed yet,” she said. “I think we will feel the impact later.”
What Bloomberg Economics Says…
“Russian households are already suffering from a loss of purchasing power as prices soar. The economic stress is likely to deepen as sanctions ripple through supply chains to weigh further on the labor market, compounding the effects on real incomes.”
–Scott Johnson. Russia economist
In March, the first full month since the invasion, retail sales fell an estimated 10% from a year earlier, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., half the decline Russia experienced at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when lockdowns closed many stores and kept consumers at home.
As the weeks tick by, evidence points toward the resilience of households. Independent pollster Levada Center said its index of social expectations, a measure of their outlook, rose sharply last month from February.
The government’s intensified censorship and propaganda during the war are doing their part. Still, short-term inflation data and changing shopping preferences show how the sentiment is turning around.
In Demand
Basic food items saw the biggest price increases in Russia
Source: Federal Statistics Service
On a weekly basis, consumer prices are now growing at nearly one-quarter their pace a month earlier. Fears of empty shelves are fading, putting an end to hoarding and panic buying.
Deposits are meanwhile flowing back into the banking system, providing the central bank with enough confidence to start lowering interest rates already after an emergency hike following the invasion.
Cards issued in Russia by Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. no longer work outside the country but people have seen few disruptions at home thanks to a domestic alternative pushed in the wake of the first waves of sanctions in 2014. Franchise agreements by fast food chains like McDonald’s mean some of their outlets are keeping doors open.
“All in, it appears that the economic contraction so far has been less drastic than initially anticipated,” JPMorgan economists including Yarkin Cebeci said in a report. “Economic inertia apparently prevented a sharper decline.”
Pressure Subsides
Russian weekly inflation is easing after spike that followed war
Source: Federal Statistics Service, government
For many, however, the hardships are only just beginning. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said about 200,000 jobs are at risk in the Russian capital alone because of the exit or halt to operations by foreign businesses.
While Putin bragged Monday that the West’s “economic blitzkrieg” had failed, central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina warned the same day that as inventories of imported products run out, the economy faces a “structural transformation” over the next six months that will trigger price spikes on some goods as producers seek new sources for components cut off by sanctions.
Stocking Up
Russians switched away from buying food staples as panic eased
Source: Retail audit by NielsenIQ of Russia’s largest grocery chains
Purchases in volume, YoY
JPMorgan said the strength of the economy so far doesn’t mean it will avoid a full-year contraction of 7% this year, comparable to the deepest downturns Russia experienced in the last 30 years.
“Domestic demand is expected to be depressed as job and income losses, increased poverty, inflation, and supply disruptions reduce consumption while investment continues to fall,” the World Bank said in an April 10 report that predicted Russia’s economy will shrink 11.2% this year.
Confidence Issue
A growing number of Russians say it isn’t the time for big purchases
Source: pollster VTsIOM
Consumers, whose spending accounts for more than half of economic activity, aren’t rejoicing yet either. Fully 85% of Russians say they’ve stockpiled food supplies, a bigger share than even in 1992, the year after the Soviet collapse, according to survey published this month by state pollster VTsIOM.
Demand for gardening tools is surging as some people look to growing vegetables and home canning to survive hard times.
“Most of the population is getting accustomed to the situation,” said Andrei Milekhin, president of Romir, an independent research center in Moscow.
Thank you very much for inviting me to be here. And I recall our travels in Germany fondly, especially when Steve and I debated the Ukraine issue back then. I agree with what you said by the way, Katrina, when you said that this is the most dangerous crisis since the Second World War. I think it’s actually more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is not to minimize the danger of that crisis. But I think basically what we have here is a war between the United States and Russia and there’s no end in sight. I cannot think of how this can end in the near future. And I think there’s a very dangerous chance of escalation. First of all, escalation to where the United States is actually doing the fighting against Russia, the two sides are clashing militarily, which hasn’t happened so far.
And I think there’s a serious danger of nuclear escalation here. I’m not saying that it’s likely, but I can tell stories on how it actually happens. So the question is, how did we get in into this mess? What caused it? And the reason it’s very important to deal with that issue is it has all sorts of implications for understanding Russian thinking. If you want to understand how the Russians think about this crisis, you have to understand the causes. Now the mainstream view, which I of course reject, is that Vladimir Putin is either a congenital aggressor or he is just determined to recreate the Soviet Union or some version of the Soviet Union. He’s an expansionist, he’s an imperialist. I think that argument is wrong and my view is that this is really all about the West’s efforts to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia’s borders.
And the key element in that strategy of course, is NATO expansion. And in my story, it all goes back to the April 2008 decision at the NATO summit in Bucharest where it was said that both Georgia and Ukraine would become part of NATO. The Russians made it manifestly clear at the time that this was unacceptable, that neither Georgia nor Ukraine were going to become part of NATO. And in fact, the Russians made it clear that they viewed this as an existential threat. Very important to understand those words. From the Russian point of view from the get go, this was perceived as an existential threat. Lots of people in the West do not believe it is an existential threat to the Russians, but what they believe is irrelevant because the only thing that matters is what Putin and his fellow Russians think, and they think it is an existential threat.
Now I think, to be honest, that the evidence is overwhelming that this is not a case of Putin acting as an imperialist and it is a case of NATO expansion. If you look at his February 24th speech justifying why Russia invaded Ukraine, it is all about NATO expansion and the fact that is perceived to be by him, an existential threat to Russia. If you look at the deployment of forces in Ukraine, it’s hard to make the argument that the Russians are bent on conquering and occupying and integrating Ukraine into a greater Russia. If you listen to Zelenskyy talk about a possible solution, the first thing he goes to is talking about creating a neutral Ukraine. That tells you that this is really all about NATO expansion and Ukrainian neutrality. Furthermore, there is no evidence of Putin saying that what he wants to do is actually make Ukraine part of Russia.
There’s no evidence of him saying that this is feasible and that he intends to do it. There’s no question, in his heart he would like to see Ukraine be part of Russia. In his heart he would probably like to see the Soviet Union come back. But as he has made manifestly clear, that is not possible and anybody who thinks that way is not thinking straight. He has in effect said that. So I would like someone to point out to me the evidence where he makes it clear that what he is actually doing in terms of formulating policy is trying to create a greater Russia or reconstitute the Soviet Union. All of this is to say, if you believe like I do that he is facing an existential threat, you’re in effect saying he views this as a threat to Russia’s survival. And if he’s in a situation like that, he cannot lose. When you face an existential threat, you don’t lose. You have no choice. You have to win.
Now, this brings us to the America side. What are the Americans doing? What we’re doing, which is what we did after the crisis broke out on February 22nd 2014, is we’re doubling down. We have decided that what we’re going to do is we are going to defeat Russia inside of Ukraine. We’re going to deliver a decisive defeat against the Russians inside of Ukraine. And at the same time, we’re going to strangle their economy. We’re going to put wicked sanctions on them and we’re going to bring them to their knees. We, in other words are going to win and they’re going to lose. Furthermore, the Biden Administration and the president himself has gone to enormous lengths to ramp up the rhetoric and portray the Russians as the font of all evil and to portray us as the good guys and to create the impression in people’s minds that this is a situation that doesn’t lend itself to compromise because you can’t compromise with the devil. In fact, what has to be done here is we have to win.
Now, you’ll know that it would be a devastating defeat for Joe Biden if the Russians were to win this war. And of course, as I just said to you, from the Russian point of view, they have to win this war because this is an existential threat that they are facing. So the question you then want to ask yourself is, where does at leave us? Both sides have to win. It’s impossible for both sides to win, not when you think about the situation that we’re facing here. So how do we get a negotiated settlement? I just don’t see it happening. I don’t see the Russians giving any meaningful ground and I certainly don’t see the Americans giving any meaningful ground. So what is likely to happen? There’s now talk on our side, and even on the Russian side, that this war is going to go on for years. In other words, we’re going to have a war between the United States and Russia that goes on for years.
Now, I understand that we are not involved in the fighting at this point, but we are about as close as you can get to being involved. And then you start saying to yourself, is it not possible that we will get dragged into this one? There’s a huge amount of political pressure on the Biden Administration for us to implement the no-fly zone to actually go in for humanitarian purposes to Ukraine and so forth and so on. So far Biden has been able to resist that pressure, but will he be able to resist it forever? And what if we have a military incident that drags us into the fighting? So we could very well end up in a situation where the United States and Russia are fighting against each other in Ukraine. Then we come to the issue of nuclear escalation.
I think first of all, if the United States gets dragged into a fight against Russia and it’s a conventional war in Ukraine or over Ukraine in the air, the United States will clobber the Russians. If the Ukrainians are doing so well against the Russians militarily, you can imagine how much better the Americans will do in air to air engagements and even on the ground, right? In that situation, don’t you think it’s possible that Russia would turn to nuclear weapons? I think it’s possible. I’ve studied a lot of military history. I’ve studied the Japanese decision to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941. I’ve studied the German decision to launch World War I during the July crisis in 1914. I’ve looked at the Egyptian decision to attack Israel in 1973.
These are all cases where decision makers felt they were in a desperate situation and they all understood that in a very important way they were rolling the dice, they were pursuing an incredibly risky strategy, but they just felt they had no choice. They felt that their survival was at stake. So what we’re talking about here is taking a country like Russia, right, that thinks it’s facing an existential threat, that thinks its survival is at stake and we’re pushing it to the limit. We’re talking about breaking it. We’re talking about not only defeating it in Ukraine, but breaking it economically. This is a remarkably dangerous situation, and I find it quite remarkable that we’re approaching this whole issue in such a cavalier way. And by the way, I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that so many people who were involved in thinking about this problem today were raised during the unipolar moment and not during the Cold War. During the Cold War, as someone like Jack can tell you even better than me, we thought long and hard about nuclear war.
We thought long and hard about US-Soviet relations and how that might lead to a nuclear war. People who grew up in the unipolar moment are much more cavalier about these issues. And I think this presents a very dangerous situation. Now I would note that even if the Russians and the Americans don’t end up fighting each other, but the Ukrainians are able to stagger the Russians in Ukraine and deliver significant defeats on them, the Russians may still turn to nuclear weapons. It’s possible. Is it likely? No, but it’s possible. And that scares me greatly and it should scare most Americans and certainly most Europeans. So all of this is to say, when I look at the US-Russia relationship today, I think we’re effectively at war with each other. Although again, the Americans are not fighting against the Russians on the battlefield, but this is a very dangerous situation.
Now what about Ukraine? Don’t the Ukrainians have any agency? I mean after all, it’s their country that’s being destroyed. One could make the argument that the West, especially the United States, is willing to fight this war to the last Ukrainian. And the end result is Ukraine is in effect being wrecked as a country. Given that they have agency, is it not possible that the Ukrainians themselves will say enough is enough and put an end to this? Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case. And I think the fact is that the United States will not allow the Ukrainians to cut a deal that the United States finds unacceptable. The Washington Post had a piece on Monday that made it very clear that the administration and our NATO allies are very worried that the Ukrainians are going to cut a deal with the Russians that makes it look like the Russians won or that in fact, concedes that the Russians have won at least to some extent.
We do not want that to happen. As I said before, the Biden Administration is out to inflict a decisive defeat on Russia. If the Ukrainians decide to cut a deal and allow Russia to win in some meaningful sense, the Americans are going to say that’s unacceptable. And the Americans will work with the right wing nationalists in Ukraine to undermine Zelenskyy or his successor. So I see no way Ukraine can step in and put a stop to this crisis. I just see it going on and on. I may conclude by saying that George Kennen said in the late 1990s, that NATO expansion was a tragic mistake and that it would lead to the beginning of a new Cold War. At first, it looked like he was wrong. We had the first tranche of expansion in 1999 and we got away with it. We had the second tranche of expansion in 2004 and we got away with that. But then when the decision was made in April 2008 for a third tranche, which would include Georgia and Ukraine, it’s quite clear that we had moved a bridge too far. And the end result, I’m sad to say, is that I think that Kennen’s prediction has proved true. Thank you.
It’s been five days. According to Alex Christoforou, during a Duran video from yesterday (a program on which Lira appeared regularly), the Chilean embassy in Poland, which is the embassy covering most of Eastern Europe, has received numerous inquiries about Lira and is pursuing an investigation. The discussion about Lira starts around the 2 hours, 21 minute mark.
On April 16 Moscow confirmed that its Black Sea flagship Moskva had sunk after the survivors of her crew of 500 men had abandoned ship. It is the biggest naval loss to enemy action since WWII and a major blow to Russia’s military prestige as it wages a destructive war against Ukraine. The tactically important Russian cruiser was hit by two Ukrainian-developed Neptune anti-ship missiles fired from land-based launchers near Odesa, whereas Moscow denies these reports and claims that Moskva was damaged by a fire and sank because her hull was breached by ammunition explosions it caused.
Details are still coming in but images released by Russia’s Ministry of Defence showing the crew receiving awards had only an estimated 250 sailors on parade, suggesting that 250 men were lost or injured. The ministry has released no casualty count and has suppressed information, telling family and friends of the sailors not to speak to the press or post on social media, according to reports.
The ship
Moskva was a formidable warship, designed in the 1960s and commissioned in 1982 as the lead ship of the Atlant Class. Her intended role was to deliver an overwhelming missile attack on a Nato carrier strike group with her 16 P500 Bazalt cruise missiles. In missile terms a P500 is a beast – a 5 tonne unmanned jet aircraft carrying a 1 tonne warhead (or a hydrogen bomb), with a range of 500 km. Launched with a solid-fuelled rocket booster, a salvo of Bazalts would fly to their target at some 2,000 km/h. On arrival the swarm of missiles would divide targets among themselves, four for the high value unit and the rest for her escorts, with the aim of saturating defensive systems. A single high explosive hit would disable an aircraft carrier or destroy a smaller ship, and the resulting fire would finish the job. A nuclear hit would tear a carrier apart. The P500 has since been upgraded to the P1000 – basically the same missile with a longer range and (probably) a better radar.
With the end of the Cold War the three ships of the class remained in service, as much for show as for war-fighting, though their Bazalt systems would certainly have given an opponent a tactical headache while they stayed afloat. The ships were allocated as flagships (a meaningless but flattering term) to the Black Sea, Pacific and Baltic Fleets, and spent their time showing the flag in their respective regions.
Moskva at war with Ukraine
In the context of the Ukraine war Moskva punched well below her 12,500 tonne weight. Her P1000 missiles are designed to attack ships, not land targets, and have no reported land-attack targeting system. Moskva’s only weapon system relevant to the support of land operations is a twin 130mm gun turret. The twin 130mm is a serious weapon – capable of throwing around a tonne of high explosive per minute in sustained fire out to a range of 25 km – but Moskva had only one mounting, and ammunition stowage for about five to seven minutes of fire at that rate.
At best Moskva could use her twin guns in the rear of a defending force to attack coastal targets, which are out of range of an attacking land force, or to give close fire support to an amphibious assault, and it is in that potential role that she offered the most significant kinetic threat to Ukraine. She appeared to be located where she was as a “poised” asset, to “pin” Ukrainian defensive forces in position in case an amphibious group appeared over the horizon.
Neptune ship-killing missiles
The Neptune missile belongs to a large family of subsonic ship-killers that are present in all the world’s major navies. The basic format is a 600-800kg missile about as long as a family car. The tail of the missile is fitted with a solid-fuelled rocket booster, which takes the missile off its launcher and up to its cruise speed within a couple of seconds. The booster is then jettisoned and a small air-breathing jet engine takes over to fly the missile at around 1,000 km/h, just below the speed of sound, to its target.
The physics of fuel load, fuel energy and engine efficiency mean that subsonic cruise missiles all share roughly the same range capability – 100-150 km when fired from sea level. If you drop your ship-killer from an aircraft at height you gain extra range as the missile converts height into distance flown, and if you lengthen the missile you get more fuel and more range, at the cost of size and therefore number of missiles that can be fitted to a small ship.
A cruise missile will fly low for most of its flight – 50m above sea level – to take it away from turbulent, and therefore higher drag, air at sea level. As it approaches the radar coverage envelope of its target a sea-skimmer will drop down to 2-5m above sea level, depending on its setting, its technology and on sea conditions. At this height it can get much closer to its target before being detected. Generally a sea-skimmer will become visible to the target’s radar at about 22 km, with fifty seconds to run before impact.
In a rough sea state radar waves reflect off the sea surface and create a radar picture full of “clutter”. Clutter tends to concentrate near the emitter (where the angle of incidence is near vertical), but even at distance some clutter persists which might delay visual detection of the small echo of a sea-skimmer, especially by an inattentive or sleepy crewman. Modern radars exploit the Doppler effect to pick out a fast-moving body from background noise but Moskva’s 1960s radars are of the pre-Doppler generation. There are indications that the sea state on the night of the strike was rough, which would have helped delay detection.
Once the target is in visual range the sea-skimmer’s on-board targeting system kicks in, and this is where designers can add vital value. The basic targeting system is an active radar. However, radars can be jammed, spoofed (given false targets to lock onto) or seduced (when their target data is hacked). They can also be offered multiple radar targets using blooms of chaff (aluminium-coated clouds of microplastics), or can be blinded using chaff screens.
To overcome these countermeasures the designer can add passive radar homing (the missile detects the target’s radar emitters and homes in on them), optical homing (the missile uses a TV camera to see the target), infra-red homing (the missile homes in on the heat emitted by the target’s engine exhausts, or just the temperature difference between the steel target and the background sea), and even no homing at all (the missile measures target speed and course for a few seconds, predicts target position on impact and heads to that point without further guidance). This last is possible because it only takes a sea-skimmer fifty seconds to fly from the horizon to impact, and large ships are slow to turn or stop. The missile can also be designed to jump between targeting mode to react to or to anticipate the target’s defensive moves.
It can be seen that it can be relatively simple to manufacture a sea-skimmer (if you choose a simple terminal guidance system) or it can be highly complex (if you want to get clever with your terminal guidance). In either case missile weight is a governing factor – the more clever guidance the designer adds the more of the missile’s total weight is consumed by guidance systems, and the less weight is available for fuel (= range) and warhead (= lethality).
Most ship-killing sea-skimmers will deliver a 150kg warhead over a 150-km range at 1,000 km/h.
Ukraine’s Neptune missile is reputedly a development of the legacy Soviet KH35 KAYAK sea skimmer (Nato’s reporting name) developed by the Soviet Union from 1983. Neptune is at the larger end of the size range, with a launch weight of 870 kg. As most of the weight increase is fuel Neptune has a reported range of about 280 km, which gives it effective coverage of the Black Sea out to a line drawn from the tip of Crimea to the Romania/Turkey border. Neptune can be launched from a truck-based launcher. No information has been published on its guidance system.
Targeting Moskva
An average sea-skimmer has no effective capacity to loiter in an approximate target area and find its own targets, which means it must be aimed and fired at a very precise point in space. As it approaches that point it activates its seeker (whether active or passive) to localise the target within a narrow search arc of maybe seven degrees either side of its track. So a successful strike needs a very recent (within 20 minutes) and accurate (within a few miles) target position.
Traditionally a ship would obtain targeting data from a trailing submarine or from a trailing aircraft (perhaps her own embarked helicopter). Other sources of data can be a fix provided by triangulating radar or sound emissions from the target, or real-time satellite data where available.
Best of all (because it is most accurate and most timely) is a target fix provided from a radar-equipped aircraft flying at height over the battlespace. This was probably the source for the targeting data on this occasion.
Published flight records and tracks clearly show Nato AWACS aircraft flying circuits in Romanian airspace and on an east-west track in Turkish airspace over the Black Sea, more or less constantly since the start of the war. Moskva’s location has probably been precisely known at all times since these flights started (with identification provided by fingerprinting her radar emissions).
Fixing the position of the Moskva may also have been helped by other means, as according to reports Ukraine also launched a Bayraktar drone against the cruiser from the opposite direction, used to distract the crew and focus the more powerful of its two radar systems in the wrong direction. In addition to acting as a decoy, the drone would have also been able provide a precise location for the missiles.
Getting a hit
Returning to the moment when a Neptune missile appeared over the horizon at 22 km and with fifty seconds to impact, Moskva’s reaction would have been a combination of kinetic and electronic countermeasures. We’ve listed the possible electronic countermeasures (ECM) above. Moskva was old and probably had an out-dated ECM suite unable to jam a modern agile seeker jumping from active radar to passive radar and back at the speed of software. Neptune’s designers may well have had accurate information on Moskva’s ECM suite as well, gained during service in Soviet times.
Moskva is therefore more likely to have relied on attempts to shoot down the incoming missiles, with one or more of her three layers of hard-kill systems. The first layer is the pair of 130mm guns we mentioned earlier. Guided by radar these are theoretically capable of hitting an incoming missile, but only if they and their fire-control radars are at instant readiness and effectively operated.
The second defence layer is a suite of short-range agile surface-to-air missiles (Osa/SA-N-4 Gecko), of the same vintage as Moskva herself. SAN4 is command-guided, which limits the number of incoming targets that can be hit and puts a human decision-making step into its operation.
The third, and final, layer is a suite of six turrets fitted with 30mm Gatling-style guns capable of firing some 2,000 rounds per minute under radar guidance. The idea of these close-in weapon systems (CIWS) is to throw a wall of high explosives just in front of the sea-skimmer in the last five seconds of its flight, at 1,000 metres distance. The intention is to shred the missile before it hits.
These three layers combined give a reasonable probability of killing a single sea-skimmer, so long as all of their various radars, computers, launchers and turrets are available for instant reaction, and their operating personnel are in a permanent state of high alert – less likely in the middle of the night.
An attack which uses multiple sea-skimmers raises the chance of a hit exponentially. While the initial reports count two Neptune missiles fired, more recent, but unconfirmed, reports claim three Neptune missiles were used in the attack. Kyiv claims to have delivered such an attack on Moskva, with multiple missiles fired from two directions.
Hard-kill systems tend to focus on the lead missile, allowing the second, third or even fourth missile to slip past. Better still is to deliver a sea-skimmer attack with many missiles approaching from different directions. Attacked from two directions with multiple missiles the target’s physical assets are diluted, and its cognitive capabilities (crew attention) can also be overwhelmed. Modern warships allocate that kind of decision-making to an algorithm, but Moskva is the antithesis of a modern warship.
Geography makes Kyiv’s multiple missile claim entirely possible. Moskva was hit 120 km south-east of Odesa, and 120 km east of Primors’ke, near the Romanian border. With real-time location, course and speed data provided by a Nato AWACs it would have been an easy task to launch up to four Neptunes from one location and four from the other, timing the launches precisely to ensure that all missiles arrived at Moskva more or less simultaneously. We have no corroboration of how many Neptunes were fired, or from where, but even half that number would have a very high probability of overwhelming Moskva’s defences and countermeasures. Kyiv has claimed two hits.
A photograph of Moskva which emerged on social media last night removes any lingering doubt that this was indeed a missile strike.
When a sea-skimmer is hit by the inner layer of defence (those Gatling-style guns) it will disintegrate but not detonate. The missile fragments – 800 kg of fuselage, motor, fuel and explosive – fly on under momentum, and if the kill is close enough to the ship they will impact anyway with considerable kinetic energy, possibly sufficient to cause damage, penetrate the thin steel skin of the ship and to start the fires that the Russian side claim was the cause of the sinking of the Moskva.
Damage control
Neptune carries a 150 kg high-explosive warhead – about average for a sea-skimmer. Modern warships, even of 1980 vintage, carry little to no armour (except occasionally some around magazines), and a 150 kg explosion therefore does a large amount of damage, even to a 12,500 tonne ship.
If the missile has flown as designed it will strike two metres above the waterline and detonate deep inside the target rather than on her hull. The first effect is blast. 150 kg of high explosive will destroy everything within about 15 metres of the impact point (blast radius is reduced because the target is a honeycomb of steel compartments). The next impact is shock. Explosive shock is transmitted throughout the rigid structure of the target ship, throwing men violently around inside their compartments, breaking bones and causing concussion. Shock also dismounts equipment inside the ship (radar consoles, computers, radar transmitters, generators, switchboard equipment, ammunition hoists), will throw equipment off the upper decks into the sea, and turns any unattached equipment below decks into a missile. Finally, shock will disrupt any equipment that relies on precise alignment, like propeller shafts, fuel lines, high pressure air lines, ammunition hoists and so on.
After the shock comes fire. The warhead detonation sets alight anything combustible within its blast radius, while any unburnt fuel in the missile body adds to that fire. Fire in a warship is a particular challenge, because a ship has an abundant supply of combustible materials spread all over her interior (paint, wire insulation, hydraulic hoses, deck coverings, rubber seals on hatches and doors, diesel, ammunition, rocket fuel and a dozen other categories of combustibles). Added to that challenge is the fact that a ship fire must be fought in three dimensions – not just from each side but from above and below as well. And finally the high-pressure water mains used to bring water to the fire may themselves be damaged or destroyed by shock, and the machinery which powers them may well be damaged or destroyed.
The sum effect is that even a relatively small warhead presents an existential threat to a warship. If the resulting fire is not swiftly contained it quickly spreads (in three dimensions) consuming the very systems needed to fight it as it grows.
The target’s crew must not only fight the fire but also try to help injured personnel.
One result of a missile strike, which the crew rarely need to worry about, is sinking. Warships are built in a complex honeycomb of sealed compartments, and are generally designed to stay afloat even when many of these are flooded. A sea-skimming missile strike does little to damage a ship below her waterline, and after a missile hits ships tends to float quite happily. A hit ship is much more likely to burn out than to sink.
One hit can be fatal. Two hits in different parts of a ship present her crew with an almost insoluble fire-fighting problem. Water mains may be breached. The pumps, which provide pressure to those mains, run on electrical power and if a hit disables generators then electrical power may fail. Some 15% of the crew will probably be injured (mostly with bad burns and broken bones), demanding attention from the survivors. Two missiles mean two fires raging in different parts of the ship. As fires approach magazine spaces the risk that rocket propellant will catch fire increases. Meanwhile fires inside the ship heat deck surfaces to the point at which crew cannot walk on them, and then to a point at which decks deform and collapse underfoot.
None of this is theoretical. Last year saw a stunning example of how fire can destroy even a very large and modern ship when the 40,000 tonne USN amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was set alight by a disgruntled crew member while alongside in San Diego harbour. The entire combined forces of the San Diego fire department, the ship’s own crew and all the available hands and equipment from every other US warship in San Diego at the time were unable to bring the fire under control. Bonhomme burned for ten days, only stopping when there was nothing left to burn, and has since been written off.
It can be seen how, after hits from just one or two 150 kg warheads, a crew might quickly need to abandon ship.
If a sea-skimmer will rarely sink a warship, the crew’s efforts at fire-fighting can do just that. If the fire is burning high up in the ship the water poured on to fight it can flow into natural traps inside the ship’s internal compartments well above the waterline. A high-pressure hose pumps out many tonnes of water per minute. Panicked fire-fighting can therefore load a ship with hundreds of tonnes of water just where she doesn’t need it – high above her centre of gravity. In extreme cases fire-fighting water can completely destroy a ship’s stability and capsize her – which is almost exactly what happened to the 40,000 tonne Iranian ship Kharg in 2021, and what nearly happened to Bonhomme Richard.
As the few photos of the disabled Moskva show, she was listing when she was abandoned – a state consistent with the presence of a large quantity of fire-fighting water inboard. Moskva had also settled into the sea by approximately two metres. It is easy to calculate how much internal flooding is required to put her there – around 4,000 tonnes. With several fire hoses pumping three or four tonnes per minute each, a few hours of firefighting would deliver that quantity of water inboard. In the resulting state (called “loll” in ship stability parlance) even a very large ship will capsize. As the ship tilts under the weight of flooding a new problem arises – the small holes created by the initial missile penetration roll underwater, and external flooding then destroys what is left of stability. This appears to be what happened to Moskva, and the photograph that has emerged shows her just before this critical point. In a state of loll, and with water flooding through the 0.3-square metre impact hole, Moskva would sink in a flat calm, and it appears that the sea state was indeed mild just before she sank.
Hit or miss
Naturally, Kyiv’s narrative of a highly successful Neptune attack is not the only story on offer. Moscow has claimed that Moskva caught fire for unstated reasons, that the fire threatened one of her magazines, and that her crew abandoned ship because of the threat of explosion.
Moscow’s narrative is comprehensively rebutted by the photograph of Moskva sinking. It is true that warships do occasionally catch fire. They are filled with equipment and supplies designed to combust or detonate, and with systems operating at high temperatures and pressures. However, in practice, warship fires mostly start in galleys (chip pans overheating), during maintenance alongside (welding equipment left active) or in machinery spaces. The latter are always fitted with elaborate fire drenching systems based on gas suppression or water flood. Chip pan fires are practised for often, and have their own fire suppression systems. Maintenance is unlikely to be the cause of a fire at sea. Magazines and missile stowage compartments are rigidly segregated, tend to be situated low in a ship (and therefore below most fires) and are always fitted with dedicated fire suppression systems and water flood valves. It is almost inconceivable that a non-combat fire would grow out of control to the point at which abandoning ship was the only course of action available.
What we see in the photograph is a missile penetration hole roughly amidships on the port side, about 2 metres above the waterline. The internal impact point was probably a main machinery space. Above this point the superstructure is burning strongly with smoke flowing from all points (we can also see actual hotspots of fire within the smoke). More smoke is emerging from open portholes along the main deck. The P1000 missiles forward of the impact point are unharmed. Further corroboration of a successful strike is the fact that Moskva’s radar masts and aerials have been dismounted – probably by shock from the explosion.
There is a second (more ambiguous) impact point low on Moskva’s port quarter, just forward of the break of her main deck. Here there is less evidence of uncontrolled fire, and it is possible that this missile (perhaps one of those fired from the western launch point) failed to detonate. However, on the hangar roof the two large fire hoses (installed to fight helicopter fires on the flight deck aft) are still operating at full pressure.
Moskva’s life rafts were fitted just above this impact point. All those on the port side have been launched. Each raft is usually designed to take 50-60 men (allowing the whole crew to fit into the rafts from just one side), and the fact that they are all launched corroborates the report that Moskva was abandoned.
Moscow has claimed that all of Moskva’s crew are safe and well, but that is highly unlikely to be the case. A missile strike anywhere within the main body of a warship is likely to kill the nearest 20 men, and injure another 40. Here we seem to have two strikes. The only published information on the Moskva’s ship’s company was Russian Ministry of Defence images of the crew on parade, where only about 250 sailors were present according to estimates, including the Captain Anton Kuprin, who was earlier reported dead, suggesting the remaining 250 sailors were either killed, missing or injured. An uncorroborated Turkish report suggests that 50 men have been recovered by a Turkish warship, which would be consistent with a single life raft.
Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych appeared surprisingly unsure of the cause of the explosion. “I don’t really have real information about this, and I prefer to wait and check quietly what sources say,” he said in an interview on CNN.
Implications for the war, and sea power in the Black Sea
Assuming the Moskva was indeed hit and sunk by Neptunes (and no other interpretation is now credible), what implications are there for the future conduct of the war?
First, Russia would have to accept that any ship sailing within about 280 km of Ukrainian-held coast is at serious risk of attack. That applies to amphibious assault ships, as well as to much smaller fast attack ships and ships equipped with Kalibr land attack missiles. Smaller ships are harder to hit – the target area is smaller, they are more agile, which means they can reduce hit probability by turning end-on to an incoming missile, they have more modern radars and close-in weapon systems, and being smaller are likely to attract smaller salvoes, but in spite of all that it seems likely that the Russian Navy will position its assets at much greater distances from the coast of Ukraine, reducing the number of frequently-used Kalibr cruise missile launch platforms available to Russian commanders for targets in western Ukraine and also reducing their reach.
In terms of amphibious operations, Neptune’s success substantially decreases the risks of an amphibious landing near Odesa. With targeting provided by Nato AWACs assets, an amphibious group would have to spend some seven to ten hours within range of a Neptune strike before reaching the beach – likely to be a suicidal exercise.
If it wanted to carry out an amphibious assault on or near Odesa Moscow would now have to invest considerable time and resources in hunting down and destroying Neptune launchers. Since these are essentially large trucks they may be hard to find.
The Neptune strike on Moskva therefore largely neutralises the amphibious threat to Odesa. That may release some number of Ukrainian troops for use on another front. We do not know what, if any, plans Moscow actually has for an offensive on the Odesa front. If the Russian troops on that front (who have been strikingly inactive for the past month) are there simply to pin and distract Ukrainian forces from joining other fronts then the removal of the amphibious threat may also render that “poised threat” empty, allowing the redeployment of larger numbers of Ukrainian units.
On the other hand, the strike does nothing to relieve the effective blockade of Ukraine by Russian naval forces. As Turkey has closed the Bosphorus straits to military traffic Moskva cannot be replaced, but it was only one Russian naval asset among many already in the Black Sea.
Russia still has a handful of helicopter-capable frigates on hand (helicopters are the most useful tool for boarding recalcitrant merchant ships to compel their compliance without bloodshed) but will regret the loss of Moskva’s pair of helicopters and additional presence. So the blockade of Ukraine will persist, at a greater distance from Odesa, but nevertheless will be effective.
In the arena of surface warfare and sea surface control Moskva was an imposing asset with long arms and heavy fists, but without any real surface threat to counter. Calls from Kyiv to deploy Nato warships into the Black Sea have consistently been ignored, partly from a reluctance to risk direct confrontation with Russia, partly because of the tight restrictions imposed by the Montreux Convention on entry to the Black Sea and partly because of Moskva’s potent ship-killing potential.
If, at some future point, Nato states become willing to confront Russia directly, and if Turkey allows Nato to ignore the limits of the Convention, then Moskva’s absence from the order of battle will lower the barrier to entry.
One state, of course, is not constrained by the Montreux Convention. Turkey, a member of Nato (if semi-attached) is at present adopting a neutral stance in the Ukraine war. The presence of Moskva and her sixteen P1000s may have been one factor in that choice. Her absence may slightly lower the barrier to a future decision by Turkey to support Ukraine with armed force.
So, if Moskva’s neutralisation has marginally changed the balance of naval power in the Black Sea, it is not likely to cause Moscow any real worry.
However, the reputational and emotional effect of Moskva’s loss is likely to be much more powerful. For Kyiv the sinking of the Moskva is, if nothing else, a huge propaganda coup and will considerably boost morale. The Moskva was the ship that hailed and ordered the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island to surrender, eliciting the now famous response: “Russian warship: go f**k yourself.” Only days before the Moskva’s sinking the Ukrainian post office issued a stamp commemorating that exchange, that features a Ukrainian soldier on the shore flipping the bird to Moskva at sea.
