US intelligence has allowed the Ukrainian Armed Forces to sink the Russian missile cruiser Moskva in mid-April, according to US media reports.

However, the US government was not aware of the plans of the Ukrainian forces to hit the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Washington Post and the New York Times claim, citing anonymous sources close to the US intelligence services.

The United States has given Kyiv intelligence on the exact location of the cruiser, NBC News explained.

The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet sank in mid-April. Ukraine has said it hit the missile cruiser with Neptune surface-to-surface missiles. Moscow denied this, announcing that the ship sank due to fire and explosion of part of the ammunition it carried on board.

The Soviet-designed cruiser was put into service in 1983 when it was called Slava (“Glory”). It was renamed Moskva (“Moscow”) after the dissolution of the USSR. Equipped with sixteen P-1000 Vulcan surface-to-surface missile launchers, anti-submarine weapons, and anti-aircraft systems (the naval equivalent of the S-300 surface-to-air system), the cruiser was deployed in the Black Sea to guarantee anti-air defence of the rest of Russian warships off Ukrainian coasts and the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.

Source: APA MPA

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