Pentagon confirms explosion aboard Russian warship
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Thursday said the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet was still afloat and “operating under her own power” after an explosion aboard the vessel — which Ukraine said was the result of a missile strike and Russia said was caused by an internal fire detonating ammunition.
Kirby was unable to verify either country’s claim about the Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva, which he said is one of three cruisers in the Russian fleet and was operating roughly 60 miles south of Odesa — a Black Sea port city in southern Ukraine — at the time of the blast.
“We know she suffered an explosion,” Kirby said in an interview on MSNBC. “It looks like — from the images that we have been able to look at — it looks like it was a pretty sizable explosion, too. We don’t know what caused that explosion.”
The warship is now heading further east, he added, and U.S. officials assess it will likely dock at Sevastopol — a Black Sea port city in Crimea, the disputed peninsula south of Ukraine that Russia seized and annexed in 2014.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said the warship was “seriously damaged” and that its crew was “completely evacuated” after the explosion, which occurred when “ammunition detonated” as a result of a fire, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS.
Meanwhile, Odesa Gov. Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram that Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles fired by border guards on the Black Sea’s Snake Island “caused very serious damage” to the warship.
In an interview on CNN, Kirby said the explosion was “sizable enough” that U.S. officials “picked up indications that other naval vessels around her tried to come to her assistance.”
“Eventually, that wasn’t apparently needed, so she’s making her own way now across the Black Sea,” Kirby said, “and we’ll continue to try to monitor this as best we can.”
