Another image, though lower quality and doesn’t show much that the first didn’t:
One small oddity–near the stern of the ship, there’s a box-like structure with a pair of doors. In the old image, you can see one of the doors being open. In the new image, both are open. I have to presume this is to provide access to the inner hull for large items, maybe for restocking missiles. But I wouldn’t think they’d ever leave them open while at sea. Could be they opened them due to the fire, but that doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. Open due to carelessness? Blown open from the explosion? Something else?
On an American cruiser those doors would be to the helicopter hanger. But the area seems too small for that from the perspective of the photos.
Ahh, that would make sense. It does seem to have a straight shot to the helipad. A heli with folded rotors would fit in there, though maybe not a large one.
I also think it’s probably a helicopter hangar.
The Moskva carried one Ka-25 or Ka-27 helicopter.
Looks like you can fit two in there, actually. Maybe a second parking spot for visitors. The Ka-25/7 seem to be pretty narrow and have coaxial rotors, so fairly compact.
The markings indicate so.
Though I don’t think that’s the Moskva’s helipad (look at the configuration of the CIWS and the control tower) Picture of sister-ship Ustinov’s pad.
The image of the helicopter hangar is apparently from the Russian replenishment ship Berezina.
Shades of Vietnam tunnel fun.
However the earlier pics of Moskva do show her flight deck. The little glass greenhouse-like thing just aft of the hangar should be (if they’re organized the way most western navies are, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t be) an LSO (Landing Safety Officer) position.
And an interesting thing about the portholes (or “scuttles” as we call them in the RCN) is the fact that Russian warships having so many is indicative of poor or non-existent HVAC systems. Even on old western warships (vintage 1960s such as the RN’s Leander or the RCN’s Annapolis class) have very few, if any, in the hull itself, with perhaps a few in the superstructure for such things as the Captain’s cabin and the wardroom.
I was examining the Moskva’s portholes from when 60 Minutes visited the ship. Most of the portholes look as if they are non-functional - either decorative or painted over.
Very interesting. This used to be, professionally, my bread and butter in the second half of the '80s and early '90s. My knowledge base has probably been significantly overtaken by the passage of time. For example, when I first heard that MOSKVA had been attacked I thought that we were talking about the helicopter carrier: Moskva-class helicopter carrier - Wikipedia. As it turned out, I was kind of wrong 
One wonders if perhaps the crew either (a) abandoned ship prematurely, surrendering it to fire and flooding that might otherwise have been contained or (b) tried as best they could to combat the fires, but not well enough, and was still on board as, say, a magazine of some sort exploded (which was a concern on USS Stark, resulting in them flooding out their 76mm magazine, which was located relatively high in the ship, and actually contributed somewhat to its threatening list).
One of the lessons learned from… pretty much every major damage control effort US Navy sailors have been required to engage in, is just how exhausting and prolonged the effort can be. Who knows how well the crew was even trained and drilled in damage control, much less whether they had the collective will and the stamina (and the supply of breathing devices, for working through the smoke) to combat fires and flooding for as long as might have been necessary to save the ship even if reports of ammunition exploding are just something made up by Russian propaganda.
And in these types of circumstances this will involve standing in varying depths of freaking cold water, at weird angles, while manhandling pieces of timber, metal plates, wood plugs and hammer and god-knows what else as your trying to save the ship. It’s also very possible, if not probable that this effort is being done in pitch darkness with water spraying in in massive quantities.
And then there’s the firefighting. Assuming they have breathing apparatus with a clear visor, once you go into the compartment you can’t see anything, because of the smoke, except for maybe an orange glow that the hose team is aiming at. I’ve done the firefighting and damage control stuff enough times at a training centre (where the flood water is actually pumped in from the nearby ocean front). I can’t even imagine how terrifying it must be in reality.
This guy, with a navy background, comes to the same (tentative) conclusion after considering the (limited) evidence:
Analysis of ship photo. Import components have been labeled. There is reported concern about the type of warheads in Anti-ship missiles P-1000 “Vulkan,” What is in the missile tubes?
Going off the daily score of killed soldiers and vehicles in Ukrainian Pravda, on Monday things seem to be hotting up. Seventeen tanks and 39 Russian APCs destroyed. The claimed Russian killed & wounded is now up to 20,600.
Russia seems so proud to announce their control of Mariupol. What have they actually gained? A depopulated, burned out city? Mariupol may be as bad as Aleppo. No one will know until journalists can get inside and film.
I hope the port has been heavily damaged and blocked with sunken ships. That will deny Russia its biggest prize. A unusable port will also deny their military a staging area for the invasion.
I’m feeling very pessimistic that Ukraine will ever regain control of Mariupol. Russia"s artillery and missiles make this such an unfair fight.
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