On November 7, 2022, the Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda issued an article about how Ukraine liberated the Zmiinyi (Snake) Island from the russian occupiers.
In particular, one of the paragraphs explained how the Ukrainian Navy destroyed the "Moskva" missile cruiser – the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the russian federation. The authors reproduce the chronology of events as follows. We quote below verbatim:
Read more: Zmiinyi Island Liberation Recap: Ukrainian Military Explain Every Detail
"This problem was solved on the night of 13 April. Ukrainian intelligence detected the Moskva in the sea. Kyiv sent a request to NATO reconnaissance in Europe to confirm that a certain object is in a certain square without specifying what object it is. NATO intelligence, including an advanced American reconnaissance aircraft, the P-8 Poseidon, confirmed the location of the Moskva.
After verifying this information, Ukraine conducted one of the most brilliant military operations in its history. A couple of Bayraktar drones distracted the Moskva cruiser air defense system while two Ukrainian anti-ship Neptune missiles provided by the Poseidon were launched at the location. Thus the Moskva warship ultimately reached the 'destination' it had been sent to by the defenders of Zmiinyi Island back on 24 February," stated in the article by Ukrainska Pravda.
The text fragment provided above is valuable in a sense that it is one of the first attempts to make a complete picture of one of the greatest victories of the Ukrainian fleet in the war against russia. But if you look through the quote once more, you may find several "weak points" that call into question the entire statement.
First of all, based on the authors’ words, it appears that Ukrainian defense forces submitted a request that goes roughly "we won’t tell you what we are looking for but could you check the coordinates?" If NATO received something like this, it would most probably refuse to provide intelligence. Because it is inappropriate, to say the least, to play such "semantic games" with partners who are on the same level of situational awareness, if not higher.
Another dubious statement is that Bayraktar TB2 drones were used to distract air defense systems on the Moskva warship. For starters, to distract an air defense system, it has to be working. The last photos of the Moskva cruiser before it sank show that none of the Osa SAM systems were put into combat mode, and there is no soot remaining after the launch of S-300 missiles. These clues indicate that the Moskva crew brought no air defense systems into stance of combat readiness at all.
In a way Ukrainska Pravda delivers, the words about distraction imply that Bayraktar TB2 could be used as a "bait" regardless if it gets shot down by Moskva air defenses. Frankly, the use of such valuable drones with expensive equipment in such a way is quite unlikely. For reference, the sighting system allowed one of them to take video of Zmiinyi Island while loitering above Odesa, almost 140 km away.
That is why, Bayraktar TB2s might’ve had another performed another function. Let’s assume it was the operators of the Bayraktar UAVs to be the first ones to find and locate Moskva before the strike, or confirm the hits of Neptune missiles in russian flagship.
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