The Moskva is the first Russian flagship completely lost in operation since the death of the Knyaz Suvorov battleship in the Battle of Tsushima against Japan in 1905.

The Moskva was larger than General Belgrano, the Argentinian light cruiser sunk by a British submarine during the 1982 Falklands War.

Moreover, it is a unique, unlikely example of a major warship sunk by two anti-ship missiles that managed to penetrate the Moskva’s defenses, flying at a very low altitude unnoticed by the warship’s radar…

According to Konstantin Sivkov, the retired Russian Captain First Rank, the Moskva sinking strips the Black Sea Fleet of nearly a third of its might in the open sea.

With the loss, it now has just three frigates as the largest ships, while the redeployment of other large warships from other fleets is not possible due to the closure of the Turkish Straits.