Talk:Sinking of the Moskva

Consequences / Upshot section?

Most similar articles to this one - about events of consequence in a war - include some description of the "so what?". That's what makes the event itself notable enough to deserve its own article. But this currently lacks such an outcomes / results section. Now, that's understandable - events are still unfolding. But I think we should take a stab at it with what is known now, and to give a place to add to in the future as more becomes clear. e.g. Ukraine trumpeting the sinking as a PR victory, Russia showing anger at it, or indifference. Credibly-cited conclusions about how it affects Russia's capacity for operations in the black sea. Implications for anti-ship tactics and defense thereof in warfare, etc. Anyone want to throw a first cut in there? Denzera (talk) 21:12, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Change the title

Change the title from "Destroying of the Moskva" to "Sinking of the Moskva", it's better grammar and it's correct. PixelatedGalaxy (talk) 23:15, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree Herr Hartmann (talk) 23:21, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree. Especially seeing as there are conflicting reports regarding what happened. "Destroying" implies a guilty party. While the Ukrainian side declares they destroyed the Moskva, the Russian side states it was accidental. "Sinking" gets around the ambiguity and all relevant information can be nested in the article. ^Mac Tíre _Cowag 23:30, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreeing with all this. "Destroying of the Moskva" is jarringly bad grammar to boot. CAVincent (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not opposed to any naming suggestion but I just moved it to "Destruction of..." for better English.

By the way, "sinking" has no implications of enemy causation; see List of sunken nuclear submarines for example. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:02, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Since the "enemy causation" is still being disputed, "sinking" seems to be the appropriate term. Herr Hartmann (talk) 00:24, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Requested merge 18 April 2022

@331dot, Ad Orientem, Alex Blokha, Bri, CAVincent, Harizotoh9, Pigsonthewing, and Venkat TL: (and others) Merge this article back into Russian cruiser Moskva, please. The single most notable event about her is her sinking, no need to split content. Even RMS Titanic does not have a separate sinking page like this. Centaur271188 (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Ummm... Sinking of RMS Titanic. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:39, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Damn, I missed that link :| Thanks :) Centaur271188 (talk) 00:46, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually a lot of shipwrecks have standalone articles independent of the ship page. It's pretty common if the wreck was especially famous. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:51, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I will change my mind if the event is eventually as notable as Kursk submarine disaster. Certainly it is not yet. Centaur271188 (talk) 00:57, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Comment: This point does not matter really, but if a merge occurs, it must be removed from the notable airstrikes with military targets list as well as from the Template:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine since previous discussions deemed only events notable enough for an article can be listed there. Elijahandskip (talk) 05:58, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

This should be merged with the Russian cruiser Moskva (as per the other examples in the See Also); while a notable event, it is not on the scale of the sinking of the titanic. Having two articles on the same ship will only lead to inaccuracies down the line - better to have one well kept article (turn it into a GA), than split in two. 78.18.230.248 (talk) 10:44, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Should be merger, no reason to maintain two articles.15:30, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

this is nothing more than a POV fork

merge it back into the main article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.59.42 (talk) 16:33, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

We need to keep an eye on the video of the "survivors". Have these men just survived a shipwreck involving fires & explosions the day before - as well as a "storm" that nobody else seems to have noticed? Or is it footage from some time previously. - streona Streona (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I propose that we merge this with Russian cruiser Moskva. The ship is not so notable that it deserves its own separate sinking article (i.e. Sinking of RMS Titanic), and is more akin to the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano or the HMS Sheffield (D80). There are a lot of facts still unknown/unverified about the sinking, and having two separate articles is not going to help with quality/POV control. 78.18.230.248 (talk) 10:07, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Also, can someone put the merge tag on Russian cruiser Moskva as the page is locked to IPs? 78.18.230.248 (talk) 10:13, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

• Definitely not. This was a huge symbol of Russian military might, and the sinking was a huge moral boost for Ukrainians. 𝕸𝖗 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖑𝖊 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 (talk) 12:09, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• Definitely not. It's a flagship of Russian Navy, the air carrier killer, the strongest ship in Black Sea, it was famous before in Snake island incident. Besides, article is already 40 K, while 35K is recommended max limit. --Alex Blokha (talk) 12:54, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I've found enough older news coverage of the Moskva to justify two articles. This is unlike other ships that were not famous before their sinking, like the SS El Faro. Andrew³²⁷ 13:42, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as the ship was significantEj043465 (talk) 15:11, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, the ship is notable, and the event is notable with much international coverage. --Robert.Allen (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose because the ship is a major ship (flagship), and its sinking in the war is notable. Redoct87 (talk) 17:39, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose for reasons cited above. Palm_Dogg (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Although closed (and I agree WP:SNOW was the right call) I thought I'd add to opposing the merge by noting that the Moskva was sufficiently important to already have a substantial and well-referenced article not only before sinking but before present hostilities broke out. The sinking was, separately, also an important event which is likely to have implications well beyond present hostilities - something military planners will be studying around the world for some time to come. Having separate articles is amply justified. Also noting: it sure seems odd to me that most of the opposition to this being a separate article is coming from IP editors, some of whom seem to be oddly familiar with WP practices for users who haven't bothered to create accounts. CAVincent (talk) 02:34, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:52, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Time of sinking

A report cited here [1] says the ship sank at 3 a.m. on 14 April. The satellite radar shows other vessels nearby at 6:52 pm on 13 April [2]. Perhaps the pictures showing the damaged ship were taken late afternoon 13 April? Or am I missing something? --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:02, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree. I think the article is a little confusing, because the chain of events is jumbled and not made clear.
This table is an attempt to show roughly when the main events occurred - the order may not be correct.
Please add time, events and references to this table :

Timeline of events

April Date	Time of event	Time of report	Subject	WP:Secondary source	WP:Primary source &notes
13	18:52		Radar image
13	day	April 18	ship listing and burning		Telegram
13	19:40		Sun sets		Civil Twilight is +½h
13		20:42	Ukranian claim
13			Russian claim
14	03:00		ship sunk

We may or may not include the table in the article, but at least it shows a single timeline.
Notice the difference between when the event occurred, and when it was reported some time later.
There seems to be no fact about when the hull was breached, causing seawater to enter the ship.
There are conflicting reports on what the weather was like, and when. TGCP (talk) 22:23, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I like this idea, but need some time to consider it. Maybe we can simplify it a bit. Robert.Allen (talk) 08:51, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

References

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:51, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Photo of the sinking

I've removed c:File:Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg from the infobox as it appears to be a copyright violation (see above section). However, a local non-free file, File:Moskva Sinking.jpg, does exist, but was removed from this article for lacking a non-free use rationale. I don't have much experience with writing non-free use rationales, but I thought I'd point this out for if anyone else wanted to. However, I'll say in advance, I don't think that as currently stands it would be acceptable to use that image in the infobox. We do not have confirmation from RS of the photo's authenticity, so it would be inaccurate to show it as the infobox image. But it could perhaps be included in § "Other observations", with caption and adjacent text noting that its authenticity has not been confirmed. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:09, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

The Times published the photo today, crediting "RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE VIA AP". --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:59, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

re: "is metro a deprecated source?"

@WikiHannibal: Indeed it would be; It's not deprecated, but it is "generally unreliable"; see WP:METRO. "Generally unreliable" is not good enough for a current and highly politicized event. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 08:37, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

@theleekycauldron Hi, generally speaking, it may be not good enough; but their article shows the video, as I pointed out, so I still cannot see your reasoning behind this. I suppose you do not think they made a fake video, so what exactly you considered unreliable about the article to remove it? Thanks, WikiHannibal (talk) 09:19, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

@WikiHannibal: If we rely on the video, that's essentially utilizing primary sources. WP:PRIMARY point 1 says that primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. This one isn't reputably published here, it's on Metro. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 18:09, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Best to find similar information from a reliable source. If a source like Metro is the only source then better to wait until more in depth coverage is obtained. There’s no rush. WP:NOTNEWS Verification is more important than trying to have premature, vague, inaccurate content. Technophant (talk) 20:10, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

file:Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg

COMMONS:File:Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg has been nominated for deletion on COMMONS at COMMONS:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 21:07, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Crew rescue and salvage attempts

Hi there! Does anybody know the name of the Turkish ship [3] involved with the crew rescue? What about the salvage attempts by 2 rescue tug boats? One of them was the Shakhter (SB-922), project 712 [4] with he famous picture probably taken from the [5] [6] SB-742 project 22870. --Nicola Romani (talk) 13:34, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

File:FQlEjIoXwAYLYpS.jpg

FYI, COMMONS:File:FQlEjIoXwAYLYpS.jpg has been nominated for deletion. See the discussion on COMMONS at COMMONS:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Крейсер "Москва" тоне.jpg -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Definite article in the title

According to WP:NCS, it is generally preferred not to have "the" in front of the name of a ship. Hence, should the title of this article be more correct as "Sinking of Moskva"? Loqiical (talk) 11:11, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

It says "Generally, a definite article is not needed before a ship's name, although its use is not technically wrong.", so having it is not an error. "Sinking of Moskva" looks plain wrong in the variant of English I speak and write. Bazza (talk) 12:20, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Back when this article was still at "Destruction of the Moskva", I did consider moving it to drop the the for consistency, but checked Special:PrefixIndex/Sinking of the and found it was far from unique, so let it be. Like Bazza, I think the issue may be more with a provision of NCS that is at odds with how most people speak English. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 18:40, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Is it ok for us to use the definite article in the article body? Loqiical (talk) 23:59, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I would say yes, for the same reason as above. Bazza (talk) 08:53, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Almost all major newspapers seem to use it. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:16, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Largest by displacement?

I don't think we should say Moskva was the largest warship by displacement sunk since WWII. Our source doesn't actually say that: "The 12,490-tonne vessel is the biggest Russian warship to be sunk in action since World War Two." However, the BBC appears to be wrong about the displacement. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Request Sanity Check. Pinging Abecedare. GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:48, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Adding my agreement with this as well as your other recent edits re: comparison with General Belgrano. Looks like the BBC goofed. Guess they didn't get the memo that Wikipedia is not itself a reliable source :-) CAVincent (talk) 04:13, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Neptune missile 150 kg warhead and analysis

Please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RealClearDefense. GA-RT-22 (talk) 16:18, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Asia Times

I can't believe we're citing this Asia Times story: The mystery of the Moskva and Makarov. Check out the photo of "The damaged Moskva being towed to shore." It's obviously a joke. GA-RT-22 (talk) 16:40, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

LOL, agreed, we should probably not use that source. --Robert.Allen (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Impact

The source we have cited does not say "If Ukraine's assertion that the ship was sunk in a missile strike is true". It says, "The 12,490-tonne vessel is the biggest Russian warship to be sunk in action since World War Two." It does not qualify this in any way. If we have another source that expresses this doubt, we could add it. GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:16, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that the "If Ukraine's assertion..." clause can be removed at this point. If I recall correctly, the cited source (or some other source?) had this clause as a hedge when originally posted given uncertainty at the time. I don't think there is any real doubt that Moskva was sunk by missiles at this point. CAVincent (talk) 14:09, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Don't displacement numbers depend on whether the ship is fully loaded or not? Also, probably the best way to establish for certain whether and how many missiles hit is to examine the sunken ship. --Robert.Allen (talk) 16:14, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Real-time battlefield targeting intelligence

Do the sources support "real-time battlefield targeting intelligence"? They say "crucial information to Ukrainian forces that allowed them to attack and sink" and "the location of the warship before it was struck." To me the former implies a continuous stream of location information, while the latter could be a single location at a single point in time. GA-RT-22 (talk) 15:27, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

The NYT source[7] says this: "targeting data ... was provided to Ukraine in the hours before the Neptune missiles were launched" and "officials declined to elaborate on what specific information was passed along". "Hours before" is the opposite of "real-time". GA-RT-22 (talk) 17:04, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think it has been established that the US provided real-time targeting information. Also, we should probably remove the cite to Business Insider, because that article has no original reporting. Instead we should cite the NBC News article and the NY Times artice that first reported the US involvement. Subsequent to these reports, the US downplayed their role (CNN). Biden was upset, because he felt US officials were boasting and not giving enough credit to the Ukrainians. An article in The Times states a Ukrainian drone may have collected information for the missile strike. A high-altitude drone operated by the Ukrainians spotted the ship, and the Ukrainians provided the coordinates to the US and asked them to confirm the ship was the Moskva, which they did. In addition, the Aerotime Hub article reports that, according to Arkady Babchenko, a Ukrainian Bayraktar drone disabled the Moskva anti-missile radar before the Neptunes hit. --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Wtf? Deaths “1 per Russia”?

Amazing. Have we learned nothing about trusting Russia? Rumor had it, (not Pro-Russian, or MSM) most of the ship died! Minus the few fortunite rescued by Turkish ship; that just happened to be in the area; during the sinking; and storm. Fix the deaths; shame on you for turning into pro-Kremlin propaganda outlet. 2600:1001:B104:5406:45BE:A6E1:8C14:E8CC (talk) 19:51, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

sorry to say, but no matter how false pro-russian sources are (which they obviously are), "all claims must be addressed". just like that clearly false claim of 8k+ ukrainian soldiers being captured, here all claims must be addressed. Dawsongfg (talk) 20:31, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

If a Neptune missle hits a heavy ammunition ship

The chain reaction, with “storm” should’ve killed most. Keep saying number of Deaths: 1 (per Russia)

You should be ashamed! 2600:1001:B104:5406:45BE:A6E1:8C14:E8CC (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Kyiv Interior Ministry, claimed "the explosion was so strong that the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet sank in a matter of minutes." "The leadership of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation have deliberately hidden the truth from relatives and friends of the crew members," he said. "All the crew of the cruiser Moskva died."[8] But Gerashchenko is known to have made unsubstantiated claims in the past. Plus we know the ship did not sink until at least 8 or 9 hours after the missiles struck. There is little reason to think most of the crew was lost. The pictures, probably taken not long after the missiles struck, show the lifeboats were already deployed. It was even suggested that the Moskva's captain may have abandoned the ship too early.[9] The US confirmed, they saw lifeboats in the water.[10] According to the report from the Wagner group (02:59, 14 April), the crew realized the munitions were likely to explode and abandoned the ship before that happened.[11] Presumably everyone the Russians reported as missing died. They may have been killed when the missiles struck the ship and/or during the initial fire. More bodies have probably been recovered since that report was published. --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:50, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

"She"

Please see WP:SHE4SHIPS. "Ships may be referred to by either feminine pronouns ("she", "her") or neuter pronouns ("it", "its"). Either usage is acceptable, but each article should be internally consistent and exclusively employ only one style. As with all optional styles, articles should not be changed from one style to another without clear and substantial reason." The style in this article is "she". Changing a single instance of "she" to "it" is not acceptable because it makes the article internally inconsistent. GA-RT-22 (talk) 01:55, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Picture of the launch of Neptune missile

This article provides more details of the sinking and an alleged picture of the historic missile launch.[12] Znuddel (talk) 19:36, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The "two sides" formulation of this article is not fit for purpose

This article is taking the same "two sides" approach that was abandoned when it came to the article covering the sinking of the Belgrano. Particularly, it is presenting the claims of the Russian government as of equal validity to those of Every. Other. Source, all of which state that the ship was sunk by the Ukrainian armed forces. This is not just a Ukrainian claim and it is wrong for this article to present it as if it were simply Ukraine that disagreed with Russia on how the ship sank. Moreover it is wrong to use "Russia" as if all Russian sources agreed with the Russian government on why the ship sank - the article clearly presents Russian sources that disagree with the official version from the Russian government.

One other very obvious problem with this approach is that the Russian government never explicitly denied that the ship was hit by missiles. They only stated that the ship suffered a fire after an ammunition explosion, and then sank whilst being towed - this statement is not inconsistent with the ship being struck by missiles which either caused the "ammunition explosion" or were the "ammunition" that "exploded". We are treating these statements as contradictory when they are, in fact, not contradictory.

The article should be changed to give only a single timeline for events noting only where the sources actively differ as to what actually occurred. Where every source says that something happened except one, this should be dealt with as per WP:FRINGE.FOARP (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me there is no "single timeline", since most reports do not specify when various events occurred, in particular, the missile strikes, the explosion(s), the fire(s), the towing of the ship, as well as the deployment of life boats, the evacuation of survivors and their rescue. About the only times we know with any certainty are its location at 18:52 local time on 13 April 2022 and that it probably sank between 02:00 and 03:00 on 14 April. Given the lack of specificity, it's not always clear whether reports are contradictory or not. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Robert.Allen - If the Russians don't say specifically when the "ammunition explosion", the "fire", and the "sinking in stormy seas" occurred, I don't see this as an issue - the core of it is that these happened in succession and are anyway not contradictory to the version accepted by nearly every other reliable source (except that the seas were not reported to be "stormy"). Just mention that this is what the Russians say happened at the appropriate point. We do not need an entire separate section on the Russian version of what happened. We used to have a similar situation on the page for the Belgrano, but in reality the old Argentine government version had long ago been debunked, and it was clear what the majority of reliable sources supported - there was no need for separate sections for each version of events.

PS - the same goes for the "when things were reported" timeline format of the article. I understand how this came about (stuff being added to the article as it was reported) but the article is about the event itself, not reports about the event, and so the key timeline is what happened during the sinking, not when who said what. FOARP (talk) 11:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for removing the section headings. The Russian account is the only one that is likely based on eye-witness reports from the crew of the ship. The crew may not have known what hit the ship and caused the fire. They may never have seen or been aware of the missiles, so the early Russian reports could be an accurate, if incomplete, reflection of what the ship's crew actually knew. By the way, both the Russians and the Ukrainians reported stormy seas when the ship was sinking. Weather can often be quite localized. If anything, we should remove the NPR report that the weather was calm. It certainly does not belong in the Russian account. When you say "the version accepted by nearly every other reliable source", I don't know what you are referring to. Do you mean, that the ship was sunk by the missile strikes? Most sources quote the Ukrainians and the US Dept of Defense for that. If the Ukrainians launched the missiles and were likely watching with a drone, they could reasonably conclude the missiles hit the ship, but they did hedge a bit the following morning. There were also reports that the ship was attacked by a drone. Reports by the US Defense Department, who presumably had better observation capabilities, later confirmed two missile strikes, fire, explosion, presence of lifeboats, and the sinking, but did not provide any times or timeline. Many news reports are simply regurgitations of other news reports. These can be ignored. The Russian TASS reports cannot be ignored. They are part of the story and were reported by every reliable news source. The first report we have mentioning the explosion of munitions was by TASS at 01:58 local time 14 April. The first report the ship had sunk was posted at 02:59 local time on 14 April on Telegram by the Wagner group. It is the only report that supports the time of sinking claimed by Anušauskas later that morning. (One Wikipedia editor wanted to delete Anušauskas' report from the article, claiming it couldn't possibly be correct.) We don't really know the course of events which caused the ship to sink, so the actual reports and their timings would in many cases be quite important for establishing any kind of timeline. We have to leave that to the reader. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:38, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Now that I reread the Politico article, it does say: "The Pentagon press secretary still couldn’t confirm conflicting claims from the Russians and Ukrainians about what ultimately led to the ship’s demise. While the Russian side claimed there was a fire on board and a storm sank the ship, the Ukrainians said the damage from their Neptune missiles sent the ship underwater". That framing probably contributed to the way the article was created here. --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:50, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

It is not the first time, there is another sunken ship, the Russians have not learned that it is not good to call ships Moskva in Black Sea: Soviet destroyer Moskva 86.122.55.243 (talk) 07:12, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

"Storm"

The video does not show the storm stated in Russian reports.[57]

This is the only current acknowledgement (I could see!) that the Russian report of heavy weather is a fabrication. Surely it's worth having a sentence with reliable citations to nearby weather reports? ElectronicsForDogs (talk) 22:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)