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Why the sinking of Moskva mattered on 14 April 2022
Summary
A look back at the day Russia's Black Sea Fleet flagship went down, amid threats to Kyiv, border-village claims and new Western aid.
What did it mean when the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet went to the bottom of the sea? On 14 April 2022, the guided missile cruiser Moskva sank, and it dominated the day's reporting on the war in Ukraine.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed that the cruiser had sunk in the Black Sea after an explosion and fire on board. Ukraine said it had struck the warship with Neptune anti-ship missiles. The Russian Navy had tried to tow the damaged vessel to Sevastopol, but it went down before reaching port.
A ship with a history in this war
Moskva, formerly named Slava, was commissioned in 1983 as the lead ship of the Project 1164 Atlant class and named after the city of Moscow. Its crew numbered 510. New information emerging on 14 April indicated that the cruiser had been among the ships that took part in the attack on Snake Island on 25 February. The sinking was described at the time as a major Ukrainian victory, and Moskva was reported to be the largest warship sunk in combat since the Second World War.
Threats and counter-accusations
The sinking came a day after Russia's defence ministry said, on 13 April, that it would begin targeting Ukrainian "decision-makers", including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and command centres in Kyiv if Ukrainian forces kept attacking Russian territory.
On 14 April, Russian claims about incidents on the border added to that picture. Russia said two Ukrainian helicopters had carried out at least six air strikes on residential buildings in the village of Klimovo in Bryansk Oblast, injuring seven people. Ukraine denied this, saying Russians had shot at the villages themselves as part of a plan to whip up anti-Ukrainian hysteria. Separately, Russian authorities said they had temporarily evacuated the entire populations of two villages after Ukrainian forces allegedly shelled the settlement of Spodaryushino in Belgorod Oblast.
Civilian harm on the ground
Also on 14 April, Russian forces opened fire on a convoy of buses evacuating residents from Borova. Seven people were killed and 27 were wounded. A day earlier, the governor of Kharkiv Oblast, Oleh Synyehubov, said seven people had been killed and 22 injured in the oblast over the previous 24 hours.
Aid and diplomacy
On 13 April, the United States said it was sending an additional $800 million in military aid to Ukraine. The package included heavy weapons: artillery systems and rounds, armoured personnel carriers, Mi-17 helicopters transferred from Afghanistan, 300 Switchblade drones, and unmanned surface vehicles for coastal defence.
The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (Andrzej Duda, Gitanas Nausėda, Egils Levits and Alar Karis) travelled to Kyiv on 13 April and met Zelenskyy. The same day, Colombia's president, Iván Duque, said in an interview that what was happening in Ukraine was genocide, responding to the US president's use of the word.
On the diplomatic track, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on 14 April that Turkey was still working to organise a possible meeting between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mariupol
In the siege of Mariupol, the Russian defence ministry claimed on 13 April that about 1,000 Ukrainian marines had surrendered. Ukraine made no comment.
