Russian flagship that fired on Snake Island crippled in explosion as sailors run

The Moskva missile cruiser, Russia’s Black Sea flagship is ablaze with a Ukrainian official having said it was hit by missiles while Moscow has said ammunition on board has blown up

Russia’s Black Sea flagship that fired on heroic border guards on Snake Island has exploded with its crew scrambling to evacuate after being hit by missiles, said a Ukrainian official.

The Moskva missile cruiser has been seriously damaged after ammunition on board the ship blew up, Interfax news agency quoted the Russian defence ministry as saying.

“As the result of a fire on the Moskva missile cruiser, ammunition detonated,” it said in a statement.

Elsewhere, Maksym Marchenko, governor of the region around the Black Sea port of Odesa, triumphantly claimed in an online post that the 12,500 tonne ship was hit by two missiles, without providing evidence.

“Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage,” he said in an online post.

The 600 feet flagship has been used by the Russians as a show of strength in the Black Sea.

The Moskva was the ship which fired on 13 defiant border guards on Snake Island early on in the invasion where one of the Ukrainians famously said “go f*** yourselves” after they were told to surrender.

Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych, reportedly said the ship was “burning strongly” in a YouTube video

He stated: “It burns strongly. Right now. And with this stormy sea it is unknown whether they will be able to receive help.

“There are 510 crew members. We don’t understand what happened.”

Last month Ukraine said it had destroyed a large Russian landing support ship, the Orsk, on the smaller Sea of Azov to the north east of the Black Sea. Moscow has not commented on what had happened to the ship.

It comes as Ukraine has warned that Russia is ramping up attempts in the south and east to take full control of Mariupol, in what would be the first major city to fall.

Western governments are sending more military aid to bolster Kyiv.

Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday said 1,026 soldiers from Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, including 162 officers, had surrendered in Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks, and that the port was fully under its control.

Capturing its Azovstal industrial district, where the marines have been holed up, would give the Russians full control of Ukraine’s main Sea of Azov port, reinforce a southern land corridor and expand its occupation of the country’s East.

Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces were attacking Azovstal and the port, but a defence ministry spokesman said he had no information about any surrender.

“Russian forces are increasing their activities on the southern and eastern fronts, attempting to avenge their defeats,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Wednesday night video address.

Flames were reportedly seen billowing from the Azovstal area on Tuesday, a day after Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade said its troops had run out of ammunition.

The United States has announced an extra $800 million in military assistance including artillery systems, armoured personnel carriers and helicopters, taking total US military aid to more than $2.5 billion. France and Germany also pledged more.

Senior US officials are weighing whether to send a top cabinet member such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Austin Lloyd to Kyiv in a show of solidarity, a source familiar with the situation said.

Russia will view US and NATO vehicles transporting weapons on Ukrainian territory as legitimate military targets, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the TASS news agency.

It will impose tit-for-tat sanctions on 398 members of the US House of Representatives and 87 Canadian senators, Interfax cited the foreign ministry as saying, after Washington targeted 328 members of Russia’s lower house of parliament.

Ukraine says tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in Mariupol and accuses Russia of blocking aid convoys to civilians marooned there.

Moscow has blamed Ukraine for civilian deaths and accused Kyiv of denigrating Russian armed forces.