Four years ago, Ukraine won a major victory at sea. On April 13, 2022, Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles hit the flagship of the russian Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser «Moskva». The next day, the ship sank.

The russian flagship probably believed that they were keeping a safe distance from the Ukrainian coast - about 120 km. But, as the Ukrainian military later recalled, that day superior forces were on the side of Ukraine.

The fact is that the Ukrainian radars available at that time could not see beyond the horizon. But low, dense clouds created additional opportunities. The signal was reflected from the clouds to the surface of the water, and from it back to the clouds - and in such a corridor the radar saw the "Moskva" and was able to target the missiles. The target was clearly identified and attacked.

The cruiser "Moskva" had a powerful three-level air defense system: the "Fort" anti-aircraft missile system with a range of 75 km, two "Osa-M" missile systems - 10-15 km, and 4 rapid-fire six-barreled guns. Not far from the "Moskva" were modern frigates, which could also use their air defense systems.

The decisive factor was that the Ukrainian missiles flew at an extremely low altitude - about 3 meters above the water. Therefore, the Russian air defense did not notice them in time. As a result, two "Neptunes" with a small interval hit the port side of the "Moskva".

However, the flagship cruiser is a huge ship 186 meters long (almost two football fields). It is not so easy to destroy it even by hit by hit. And here again success – the missiles hit precisely the most critical places of the flagship: the engine room, the central command post of the ship’s survivability and the “cellar”, where anti-aircraft ammunition was stored… However, the crew fought for the cruiser’s survivability, and the ships that were nearby rushed to help.

And here again nature came to the aid of the Ukrainians. A storm with a force of three points arose at sea. Under normal conditions, this does not pose any threat to a large ship. But under conditions when the ship was hit by missiles – it was much more difficult for the crew to fight for its survivability, and for other ships to approach and provide assistance.

They tried to tow the damaged “Moskva” to the naval base, but it gave a significant list and sank.

Obviously, the death of the flagship is not only a great loss, but also a major blow to military-political prestige. To minimize the scale of the defeat, his russian propaganda initially published a version that a fire had broken out on the ship and ammunition had detonated. In order not to cast a shadow on the helm of the country, russian propagandists discredited the dead sailors: they said that they had started the fire and were unable to extinguish it. If before the full-scale war they talked about the overhaul and excellent modernization that the «Moskva» had undergone, then after the sinking they began to say that the cruiser was outdated and of little value.

Meanwhile, the «Moskva» was only a successful debut in the Ukrainian hunt for the enemy’s naval forces. Soon, under the blows of Ukrainian missiles and drones, the russians lost control of the western part of the Black Sea and withdrew the main forces of their fleet from the temporarily occupied Sevastopol to the more remote Novorossiysk. But even there, russian ships are subjected to stinging attacks by Ukrainian air and naval drones.

Ukraine changed the rules of war at sea. Without a classic military fleet, it defeated a powerful enemy fleet.