Merely a brain dump on some possibilities of what befell
Moskva, given what little information we have about the sinking. Suffice it to say, this is a huge embarrassment for Russia regardless of what actually happened to her.
Clues and information favoring the Ukrainian Neptune strike theory:
- Ukrainian sources reported of the attack before Russian sources stated that an explosion had occurred onboard
- US intelligence corroboration
- There is no direct denial of a missile attack by Russian government mouthpieces
Clues and information favoring the accident/mishap theory:
- Ukraine claims that two Neptunes were used in the strike. These are YJ-82/Harpoon/Kh-35-class weapons that are extremely unlikely to bring down a Slava-class-sized vessel by themselves. It has been speculated that the missiles set off secondary detonations, mainly among the deckside P-1000 missiles. However, there is no way that anyone on the Ukrainian side would've been able to ascertain this claim, and the Russians have not released any further details of the explosions.
- Ukraine claims that it "distracted" the air defense systems of the cruiser with drones. If this is true, then that means that at least a portion of the ship's radars and SAM platforms were active and operating; it is very unlikely that they were unable to deal with simultaneous threats of drones and incoming AShMs. Ukraine has not demonstrated the capability to field drone swarms.
- Back to the drones...such drones tasked with confusing a ship's ADS would surely be equipped with a camera. Which means that if their claims are true, there surely would be photos of the cruiser following the missile attack. Given the propensity of Ukrainian media to post photos/videos of their attacks on Russian forces, why have we not seen photos of the actual ship post-attack?
- Historical precedent of misinformation: remember what happened to the Vasily Bykov?
I'd like to point out that it is in Russia's interest to keep this under wraps, assuming that it did get hit by an Ukrainian missile,
unlike the Belgorod situation. The attack on Belgorod could be used by Russian propaganda and spun as an attack on a civilian target, whereas the cruiser enjoys no such designation. Moreover, losing a capital ship named after the freakin' capital to a country
without a damn navy rings a different bell than a measly cross-border raid by helicopters.
The only way for this to be settled is if either Russia or Ukraine releases videos/photos of the damaged vessel or a dive is attempted to assess the wreckage.
