But she can protect the Kalibr-carriers-and other ships-as she sweeps the surrounding sea and air of enemy ships and planes. Those small ships-frigates and corvettes-retain a long-range strike capability in the form of Kalibr cruise missiles. Today the Russian navy combines oceangoing submarines with a modest surface force that steadily is replacing big, high-endurance ships with small, short-endurance ones. Moskva’s sensors and weapons have kept her relevant, even as the Russian navy in recent decades mostly has abandoned Soviet doctrine. The overhaul extends her service life by a decade or so.īack in November, Moskva and the frigate Admiral Essen sailed from Sevastopol to shadow American and Turkish warships patrolling the Black Sea. She emerged with P-1000 anti-ship missiles in place of her older P-500s.

In 2015 she deployed to the Syrian coast in order to protect Russian troops from possible air and sea attacks.Īging and reportedly vulnerable to fire, Moskva in 2016 sailed back to Sevastopol in Crimea for a three-year overhaul. Moskva led the Russian navy’s seaborne assault on the Republic of Georgia back in 2008, protecting three amphibious ships that landed a battalion or two of naval infantry.ĭuring the Russian invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the cruiser held station off Donuzlav Bay, bottling up the Ukrainian warships there. The ship’s Top Pair and Top Steer radars can peer out to 200 miles or farther.

The cruiser’s sensors make her self-sufficient as a missile battery.

Final flagship in black navy war