Russia is launching a salvage team to investigate the wreckage of the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva, open-source intelligence naval analyst H.I. Hutton reported on Friday.
Salvaging the Moskva
Hutton asserts that the Kommuna, a 110-year-old salvage ship — one of the oldest active warships — will be deployed for the salvage operation.
"Kommuna is likely to be carrying a deep-diving submersible," writes Hutton, who explains that the operation will investigate what is salvageable from the wreck.
Parts salvageable could include missile tubes, sensors, and munitions. There was also an indication that a Christian relic of the "True Cross" could be aboard.
While there was a rumor that the Moskva sank with nuclear weapons, last Monday a senior US defense official said in a Pentagon press briefing that they had "no indications that there were nuclear weapons on board the Moskva when it went down."
According to Hutton, the Moskva is likely far too large for recovery of the hull.
"We've seen no efforts by the Russians to try to as you put it recover the Moskva," said the US defense official. "This is a cruiser of some 600 feet. That would be an enormous engineering task to try to bring that ship up to the surface. We've seen no indication that they have shown any interest in doing that."
Casualties of the Moskva
For the first time since the sinking of the Moskva, the Russia Defense Ministry admitted to casualties, saying that of the 396 crewmen, "one serviceman was killed, another 27 crew members went missing," AFP reported.
"We can't tell you how many survivors there were or how many sailors fell casualty to the ship sinking," said the US defense official. "We just don't know."
The Ukrainian intelligence directorate reported on Friday that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet Admiral Osipov had been removed from his position, and that his deputy was under investigation. The intelligence agency said that the reason for the dismissal was the losses to the navy, including the Moskva.
The sinking of the Moskva
The Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship sank on April 14 after being seriously damaged following an explosion that a Ukrainian official said was the result of a missile strike.
Russia claimed that a fire had started on board, detonating ammunition stores. It did not say what caused the fire, and that it was "under investigation." Maksym Marchenko, the Ukrainian governor of the region around the Black Sea port of Odesa, claimed the Moskva had been hit by two Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles.
Russia later reported that the fire was contained, but the damaged Moskva later sank when the Black Sea Fleet attempted to tow it to safety during a storm.
Russian news agencies said the Moskva, commissioned in 1982 as the Slava, is armed with 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km (440 miles).
The Atlant-class guided-missile cruiser was one of the two ships that seized Snake Island on February 25, in the now-famous incident in which Ukrainian border guards told Russian naval forces,"Russian warship, f***k you...!" when told to surrender.
On Friday, the wreckage of the Moskva was declared a Ukrainian underwater cultural heritage site, BBC News reported.