WASHINGTON -- The Moskva was the pride of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a symbol of the country's dominance in the region and a powerful war machine that had been used to launch precision cruise missiles deep inside Ukraine.
Despite claims by Russia that an accidental fire broke out on the ship, U.S. officials confirmed Friday that two Ukrainian Neptune missiles had struck the vessel, killing an unknown number of sailors and sending the Moskva and its arsenal to the bottom of the Black Sea.
The sinking of the Moskva on Thursday was a blow to the Russian fleet and a demonstration of the current era of warfare in which missiles fired from shore can destroy even the biggest, most powerful ships.
The Russian cruise missiles have been used to brutal effect on apartment buildings in Ukrainian cities. And the Moskva's guns had fired on Ukraine's Snake Island.
The Kremlin's most powerful missile platform is impossible to replace, and its sinking marked a bold counterattack, retired military officers said.
The Moskva inspired awe in those who saw it -- bristling with missiles and looming over the landscape -- and was the embodiment of Russian power in the region for decades.
"It was a very impressive ship," said retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, the director of Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington. "With those surface-to-surface missile launchers, she really looks dangerous. But apparently, she can't take a punch."
Russian ships have already been pushed farther off the Ukrainian coast, U.S. officials confirmed, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments of the war. The remainder of Russia's Black Sea Fleet is still within range to launch cruise missiles into Ukraine but is unable to support any sort of amphibious assault on the country's coastal cities, according to former officials.
Naval analysts have worried for years that a new generation of ship-killing missiles would endanger large and important vessels like the Moskva or the United States' fleet of aircraft carriers.
The Moskva was itself designed as a ship killer.
Construction of the ship, originally known as the Slava, began in 1976, and the vessel went into service in 1983. Built by the Soviet Union to sink U.S. carriers, it was armed with missiles capable of striking planes, ships and submarines.
Upgraded many times over the years, the Moskva should have had defenses to shoot down the Ukrainian missiles.
The ship was armed with a medium-range missile-to-air system that was thought to be effective within 7 miles. It also had other missiles designed to take out threats 50 miles away.
While symbolically painful for Russia, the loss of the Moskva also has practical effects in the ongoing war. Missiles that would have been fired at Ukraine are now at the bottom of the Black Sea, a blow to Russia's war plans.
Now, Cox said, any amphibious assault on Ukraine will be more dangerous for Russia, with its landing and amphibious ships much more vulnerable to attacks.
The farther Russian ships are from the coast, the more limited their support for ground assaults on Ukrainian cities will be.
UKRAINIAN'S REQUEST
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a direct appeal to President Joe Biden for the United States to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, one of the most powerful and far-reaching sanctions in the U.S. arsenal.
Zelenskyy's request, which has not previously been reported, came during a recent phone call with Biden that centered on the West's multifaceted response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the conversation.
Biden did not commit to specific actions during the call, the people said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive dialogue between the two leaders. The president has told his Ukrainian counterpart that he is willing to explore a variety of proposals to exert greater pressure on Moscow, they added.
"Adding Russia to the state sponsors of terrorism list would be the nuclear economic option," Jason Blazakis, a former State Department official and expert on terrorism designations, wrote in a recent essay.
Since 1979, Republican and Democratic administrations have used the terror designation sparingly, targeting only a handful of pariah states where the United States has limited interests.
The label, which requires a finding by the secretary of state, can be applied to any country that has "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," according to a State Department fact sheet. The list currently includes four countries: North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria.
Some Republicans in Congress have pressed for the Biden administration to add Russia to the list. But administration officials have been noncommittal, saying only that they would consider the proposal, said a congressional aide familiar with the conversations.
When Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked directly about U.S. support for the designation during a news conference last month, he said, "We are and we will look at everything."
"Our focus first and foremost is on doing everything we can to help bring this war to a quick end, to stop the suffering of the Ukrainian people," he told reporters at the State Department.
The decision to add a country is significant because once they're on the list, they are rarely removed. It typically requires an extraordinary event such as regime change or a significant pivot in U.S. policy.
RUSSIAN WARNING
Stung by war losses and massing troops for a new battle in eastern Ukraine, Russia has warned the Biden administration to stop supplying advanced weapons to Ukrainian forces or face "unpredictable consequences," U.S. officials said Friday.
The Russian message -- one in a series of warnings punctuated by a formal protest note delivered Tuesday -- suggested rising concerns in Moscow that the weapons were seriously hindering Russia's combat capabilities.
The existence of the message was disclosed as the Kremlin was funneling armaments, including attack helicopters, to Russia's border with eastern Ukraine for the next phase of its 2-month-old invasion of the country.
Over the course of the war, the U.S. administration has provided increasingly heavier weapons to the Ukrainians, including 155 mm howitzers, and it announced a new $800 million arms package this week.
The Russian diplomatic protest note, called a demarche, was sent through normal channels, two administration officials said, and it was not signed by President Vladimir Putin or other senior Russian officials. But it was an indicator, one administration official said, that the weapons sent by the United States were having an effect.
U.S. officials said the tone of the note was consistent with a series of public Russian threats, including to target deliveries of weapons as they moved across Ukrainian territory.
Officials said the note did not prompt any special concern inside the White House. But it has touched off a broader discussion inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about whether the "unpredictable consequences" could include trying to target or sabotage some of the weapons shipments while still in NATO territory, before they are transferred to Ukraine for the final journey into the hands of Ukrainian troops.
Pentagon officials were insistent in the run-up to the war that the United States provide only defensive weaponry that would avoid escalation.
Jake Sullivan, the president's national security adviser, described in an interview at the Washington Economic Club on Thursday how he and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had reviewed weapons requests. They went over each item with their Ukrainian counterparts, talking about what the United States had in its stocks and what it could deliver quickly.
Reports by pro-Kremlin media have highlighted anti-tank systems and other Western weapons used by Ukrainian forces, promoting the idea that Russia is not at war with Ukraine but with a U.S.-led alliance seeking to destroy Russia. Biden and his aides have denied that, saying they wished to avoid direct conflict with Russia and had no interest in U.S.-engineered regime change.
The Russian demarche echoed the public rhetoric of officials in Moscow, who have been warning for weeks that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the war and be met with a tough response.
A Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said Friday that Russia was "making it clear to the Americans and other Westerners" that attempts to hamper what Russia is calling its "special military operation" in Ukraine and increase Russian losses would be "curbed in a tough manner."
He added that NATO vehicles carrying weapons across Ukrainian territory would be "viewed by us as legitimate military targets."
NATO hands off weapons to the Ukrainians in ways that seek to avoid having the alliance's vehicles traverse Ukrainian soil. But Ryabkov's comments have heightened concerns about whether Russia would take the risk of striking inside NATO territory.
CIVILIAN DEATHS
Elsewhere, the bodies of more than 900 civilians have been discovered in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital after Russia's withdrawal -- most of them fatally shot, police said Friday, an indication that many people were "simply executed."
Amid its threats, Russia continued preparations for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine. Fighting also went on in the pummeled southern port city of Mariupol, where residents reported seeing Russian troops digging up bodies.
In Kharkiv, shelling of a residential area killed seven people, including a 7-month-old child, and wounded 34, according to regional Gov. Oleh Sinehubov.
Around Kyiv, Andriy Nebytov, the head of the capital's regional police force, said bodies were abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating that 95% died from gunshot wounds.
"Consequently, we understand that under the [Russian] occupation, people were simply executed in the streets," Nebytov said.
More bodies are being found every day under rubble and in mass graves, he added, with the largest number found in Bucha, where there were more than 350.
According to Nebytov, utility workers gathered and buried bodies in the Kyiv suburb while it remained under Russian control. Russian troops, he added, were "tracking down" people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.
Zelenskyy accused Russian troops occupying parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south of terrorizing civilians and hunting for anyone who served in Ukraine's military or government.
"The occupiers think this will make it easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are fooling themselves," Zelenskyy said. "Russia has lost Ukraine forever."
In his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskyy also said he discussed the fate of Mariupol with top military and intelligence officials. He said he couldn't offer details, "but we are doing everything we can to save our people."
Zelenskyy said peace and "how many more Ukrainians the occupiers have time to kill" depend on Ukraine receiving more outside support, and he echoed calls for more and faster military aid, as well as an oil embargo on Russia.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov countered that "the number and the scale of missile attacks on objects in Kyiv will be ramped up in response to the Kyiv nationalist regime committing any terrorist attacks or diversions on the Russian territory."
Russia used missiles to destroy a facility for the repair and production of missile systems in Kyiv, Konashenkov said. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed striking targets in Russia, and the reports could not be independently verified.
In Mariupol, the City Council said Friday that residents reported seeing Russian troops digging up bodies buried in residential courtyards and not allowing new burials "of people killed by them."
"Why the exhumation is being carried out and where the bodies will be taken is unknown," the council said on the Telegram messaging app.
Fighting continued in industrial areas and at the port, and Russia for the first time used a Tu-22M3 long-range bomber to attack the city, said Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Mariupol has been blockaded by Russian forces since the early days of the invasion, and dwindling numbers of Ukrainian defenders have held out against a siege that has come at a horrific cost to trapped and starving civilians.
The city's death toll could surpass 20,000, the mayor said this week. It's not certain when Russia will launch a full-scale campaign.
Also on Friday, a Russian rocket hit an airport at night in the central city of Oleksandriia, Mayor Serhiy Kuzmenko said via Facebook. He made no mention of casualties.
And a regional Ukrainian official said seven people were killed and 27 wounded when Russian forces fired on buses carrying civilians in the village of Borovaya, near Kharkiv. The claim could not be independently verified.
Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor's office, told the Suspilne news website that authorities had opened criminal proceedings in connection with a suspected "violation of the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder."
Russia's Defense Ministry said strikes in the Kharkiv region had "liquidated a squad of mercenaries from a Polish private military company" of up to 30 people and "liberated" an iron and steel factory in Mariupol. The claims could not be independently verified.
Information for this article was contributed by Julian E. Barnes, James Glanz, David E. Sanger, Helene Cooper and Anton Troianovski of The New York Times; by John Hudson and Jeff Stein of The Washington Post; and by Adam Schreck, Robert Burns, Yesica Fisch and staff members of The Associated Press.
Gallery: Images from Ukraine, month 2
