One of the lead stories in the news right now is around the Russian ship Moskva, a guided missile cruiser which some have called the flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. It’s currently in bad shape. The Ukrainians claim to have hit it with a missile. The Russians claim that there was an accidental fire on board which necessitated evacuation. I have no idea what the truth is but if I were a betting man, I’d bet on a missile.
My question is, if it actually was a missile, how is claiming that it was just an accidental fire good propaganda for Russia? That would seem to be admitting that there’s either a serious design flaw in the ship, inadequate fire training in the Russian navy, insufficient automated fire protection measures, or some combination of the 3. All of these sound worse from a propaganda standpoint than “We were hit by a missile.”
They want to avoid giving credit to the Ukrainians. It’s a situation where even claiming ineptitude on one’s own end is better than letting your adversary take credit.
I would disagree about which is worse. It’s a war, and you’re trying to keep morale high and fear low.
Meanwhile fire damage is something which most of us are familiar with. We know it can happen essentially anywhere, even a building or vehicle well designed against fire. Plus it’s easier for the government to say “we’ve added a macguffin to make this almost impossible to happen again”. Easier than trying to say you have a new protection against missiles that happens to have been ready right now.
I guess my thinking is “This is war and those damn Ukrainians hit our flagship! Remember the Moskva!!” is much better for propaganda purposes than “Shit happens.”
Viewed from the perspective of Ukrainian morale, hitting a Russian ship with a missile is huge. It makes perfect sense that the Russians are seeking to deny that psychological boost to the Ukrainians, even if we stipulate that a an accidental fire isn’t much different from an enemy missile for Russian morale.
I thought I’d read that the Moskva’s function was providing anti-missile coverage to the rest of the fleet. Even if it really was an accident that took her out, if she’s offline, that still leaves the rest of the fleet vulnerable to Ukrainian missiles.
So you think “we may as well just tell the truth, because they probably wouldn’t believe us anyway” is a likely way for the Russians (or anyone) to proceed?
This at least is entirely undisputed; it is the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet; it’s used as the flagship and is also by far the largest Russian warship in the Black Sea. It displaces about 12,500 tons, the next largest ships in the Black sea Fleet are frigates displacing 3,500 tons.
I’m pretty certain that both versions are technically ‘correct,’ the Russian version just neglects to mention that the reason there was a magazine explosion was a pair of Ukrainian missiles hitting the ship. Soviet warships were often noted for being very heavily armed for their sizes, but the flip side of this is that they are also powder kegs waiting for a spark; a hit almost anywhere is very likely to set off a catastrophic chain reaction. You can easily see this in a picture of the ship, those tree-trunk sized tubes on the sides are pairs of anti-ship missiles with 1,000kg warheads and the fuel to carry them 300 nautical miles, and that’s just the most obvious visually noticeable thing. There’s a lot of missiles and shells hidden from view under the deck.
I’m reminded of the (1980s fictional novel) The Devil’s Alternative, where Ukrainian nationalists assassinate the head of the KGB, and the Soviet government goes to extreme lengths to prevent the news from coming out, because it would be a big psychological boost to the Ukrainian cause and major embarrassment for the Soviet regime.
Same dynamic at play. You don’t want your enemy, the Ukes, to get a psychologist boost from knowing that they just dealt you a big blow.
I think I’d agree with that, but at a different stage in the propaganda campaign.
Right now it’s still possible to minimize Russian deaths and pretend that the retreat from Kiev was the plan all along.
If Russia continues to suffer heavy losses they may later pivot towards fighting back against a ferocious, Nazi, western-backed foe that is coming to attack Russia.
Am I right in thinking that “Moskva” is just a different transliteration of the Russian place name we normally write as “Moscow”? In that case there might be some symbolism in play.
ETA: It also occurred to me to note that it is an irreplaceable asset for the Russians, Turkey has closed the Bosporus to warships of combatant nations for the duration of the conflict as required by treaty, so Russia can’t send another ship as a replacement from the Baltic, North Sea or Pacific Fleets to the Black Sea.
