Moskva cruiser fire: two accounts of one night at sea
On 13 April 2022, Kyiv and Moscow gave conflicting explanations for the blaze aboard Russia's Black Sea cruiser, while attacks on civilian sites remained in the news.
What actually happened to the Russian cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea? On 13 April 2022, two incompatible versions circulated, and they matched on only one point: the warship was on fire.
Two versions
Ukrainian officials said the ship had been hit by two Neptune cruise missiles. The US Department of Defense was also cited as reporting this. Russia's Ministry of Defence gave another account, relayed by Russian state media: a fire on board had set off ammunition, seriously damaging the vessel, and the crew had been evacuated.
Both sides confirmed that the warship had caught fire. The cause was the point of dispute. A missile strike would mean the ship was attacked. An accidental fire would mean it was not.
A pattern of contested claims
The dispute followed a series of exchanges in the days before in which Russia denied responsibility for harm to civilians. On 8 April, a missile strike hit a railway station used for evacuating civilians in Kramatorsk. Officials put the toll at 57 dead and 109 wounded. Many European officials condemned the attack, and Russia's Ministry of Defence denied carrying it out.
On 7 April, the governor of Luhansk Oblast, Serhiy Haidai, reported that Russian forces had destroyed all hospitals in the province. Russia denied this and accused Ukraine of destroying its own hospitals.
What the day showed
The Moskva episode differed from those cases in one respect: the damage was to a military vessel, and both governments accepted the fire. In each case, though, competing official statements reached the public at nearly the same moment. Ukrainian officials and a US institution stood on one side, Russian state media and the defence ministry on the other.
For readers following the war from abroad, the practical lesson on 13 April 2022 was to separate what both sides confirmed from what only one side asserted. The fire was confirmed by both. The Neptune strike was asserted by Ukraine and cited to the US Department of Defense, and the ammunition explanation was Russia's.
