News update
- Russia says it has hit a plant making anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv
- It came hours after it admitted that the Moskva warship had sunk following an explosion on Wednesday
- Ukraine says it hit the Russian cruiser in the Black Sea with missiles – Russia has said a fire on board caused the sinking
- Russia’s defence ministry said attacks on Kyiv would be intensified if Ukraine targeted Russian territory
- In the destroyed city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials have accused the occupiers of exhuming bodies to hide evidence of crimes
- Ukrainian forces will face a huge challenge in the east of the country, according to former CIA director David Petraeus
- President Volodymyr Zelensky has again asked the West for more weapons and blamed countries buying Russian oil
The Moskva battle cruiser damaged by an explosion on Wednesday has sunk, Russia’s defence ministry has admitted. Though whether the fire that set off its ammunition was caused by Russian incompetence or a Ukrainian strike remains unclear.
The Moskva is the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and was being towed to port when “stormy seas” caused it to sink, according to Moscow.
The 510-crew missile cruiser was a symbol of Russia’s military power, leading its naval assault on Ukraine.
Kyiv says its missiles hit the warship. Moscow has not reported any attack – it says the vessel sank after a fire.
The blaze caused the explosion of the warship’s ammunition, Russia says, adding that the entire crew were later evacuated to nearby Russian vessels in the Black Sea.
“After saying initially the warship was afloat, late on Thursday the Russian defence ministry announced that the Moskva had been lost,” reports the BBC.
Ukrainian military officials said they struck the Moskva with Ukrainian-made Neptune missiles – a weapon designed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the naval threat to Ukraine in the Black Sea grew.
The ship’s sinking was described by the US as a “big blow”, but American officials were unable to confirm whether Ukrainian Neptune missiles were responsible.
“It’s certainly plausible and possible that [Ukraine] did in fact hit this with a Neptune missile or maybe more,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said to CNN.
A senior Ukrainian official said as many as 510 crew could have been on board the Moskva.
On the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, the Moskva gained notoriety after calling on a small garrison of Ukrainian border troops defending Snake Island in the Black Sea to surrender – to which they memorably radioed an expletive-laden message of refusal.
Originally built in the Soviet-era, the Moskva entered service in the early 1980s. The vessel was actually laid down in Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv, which has been heavily bombed by Russia in recent days.