At the beginning of the eighties of the last century, the cruiser "Slava", later named "Moscow" was "born" at the shipyard in Mykolaiv, in the Ukrainian part of the Soviet Union - the pride of the Black Sea, the Soviet, and then the Russian navy.
Forty years later, it ended its journey at the bottom of the Black Sea - while it was being used in the war against Ukraine, the country in which it was built.
Russia's flagship Black Sea cruiser sank Thursday evening after being "severely damaged," Russian state media reported, with the Defense Ministry claiming that ammunition on the "Moscow" exploded in an unexplained fire and that the ship sank while being towed back to port, while The Ukrainians claim that they hit it with their "Neptune" missiles.
In addition to this war, Russia previously engaged "Moscow" in the conflict in Syria, where it served as naval protection for Russian forces on land, writes the BBC.
It was equipped with over a dozen "Vulkan" anti-ship missiles and a number of anti-submarine and mine-torpedo weapons, adds the BBC and reminds that it the second major Russian ship known to have been destroyed since the invasion began. The first was "Orsk" in Berdyansk.
The cruiser Moskva was the third-largest vessel in Russia's active fleet and one of its best-defended ships, naval expert Jonathan Bentham of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told the BBC.
The cruiser was reportedly equipped with a three-layer anti-aircraft defense system that - if it was functioning properly - should have provided it with three options to defend itself against an attack by a "Neptune" missile.
In addition to medium- and short-range defense, "Moscow" could employ six short-range weapon systems (CIVS) as a last resort.
Benthem adds that "Moscow" was supposed to have 360-degree air defense coverage.
"The CIVS system can fire 5.000 rounds per minute, essentially creating a wall of grain around the cruiser, which is its last line of defense," he said.
If it is proven to have been hit by a Neptune missile, Benthem believes it "raises questions about the Russian fleet's ability to modernize — whether it had enough ammunition and whether it had engineering problems."
"Basically, the feeling is that with that three-tiered air defense system, it's really hard to hit Moscow," Benthem concluded.
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