On April 13, 2022 a Neptune operator picked up a target on radar 120 km away. He had minutes to decide: fire or not. Nobody could confirm the target. Bayraktars refused to fly. He pressed launch. UP tells the story of how Ukraine sank the cruiser Moskva four years ago. 1/
That day heavy rain clouds hung just a few kilometers above the Black Sea. Aircraft, Bayraktars, and optical satellites were all useless. 2/
The Neptune's standard radar could see targets only up to 18 km. The Moskva knew this and closed to within 120 km of the Ukrainian coast, certain it was untouchable. 3/
The clouds hung so low that the radar signal bounced between the water surface and the cloud layer, acting as an over-the-horizon radar Ukraine did not yet have. 4/
A Ukrainian missile engineer told UP: "They knew they couldn't be seen from the air or from shore. They came that close. And that arrogance destroyed them." 5/
But the Neptunes almost failed before April. In late February the first three rockets fired against Russian landing ships disappeared into the sea and hit nothing. The operator ordered a full check of every rocket, part by part. 6/
Specialists from Kyiv's KB Luch arrived and found the same part disabled on every single rocket — the part that triggers detonation. They fixed them. Next launch: two rockets, both on target. 7/
A UP intelligence source: "That was the only time in the whole war I could say it looked like sabotage. But they fixed it, and the Moskva is gone." 8/
On April 13 the target appeared on radar. The operator hesitated for several minutes. Bayraktars refused to fly — below the clouds they would be shot down, above the clouds they would see nothing. 9/
He pressed launch. Two rockets left for sea with a short interval between them. Calculated flight time: just over 6 minutes. Whether they would hit — nobody knew. 10/
Then data came in: the Moskva had gone to full speed toward the Boyko drilling platforms. A large metal structure would draw the missile away from the ship. The cruiser was maneuvering. Something had happened on board. 11/
That night a tug left Crimea. The next morning the storm cleared. A heavy black silhouette sat on the horizon. The 120-meter cruiser was slowly going under. 12/
Hundreds of Russian sailors on surrounding ships circled and watched. Towing the Moskva back to Crimea was no longer possible. The flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, which came to sink Ukraine, was sunk by Ukraine itself. 13X
Джерело: pravda.com.ua/articles/2022/…
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