naval guns. an enormous amount of ordinance. some of which has been detonated as a result of this fire. what the ukraine side is saying they actually used a ukrainian-developed missile, the neptune missile. they are saying it was that kind of a cruise missile that struck the ship causing this damage. if that were to be the case, it s not only a big deal because of what it means for this particular ship, it s also maybe going to alter the behavior of russia s navy all around. this is a capability that the ukrainian military has to effectively strike ships from shore-based cruise missiles, it s a big deal that could start to change the way this conflict plays out. a zelenskyy aide said this is one of the ships involved in the snake island incident where you saw ukrainian i think
command. thank you for being with us again this morning. what is your assessment of what you have seen and heard around the destruction, however it happened, of this ship? yeah, thanks for having me on the show. if this is confirmed, this is another significant defeat for the russians and another victory for the ukrainians. this neptune missile is a missile that was developed in ukraine in 2021. it is a highly capable missile. but on the other hand, this ship, as you said, is the flagship of the black sea flet for the russian navys. it carries a tremendous package. it has an s-300 on it, the surface-to-air missile system. it has torpedos on it. it has anti-ship capability on it. it has a lot of capability. that s why they call it the flagship. this is a huge blow for russia.
their naval capabilities in the long term is just a was just unclear right now. courtney, what more do they know about the status of this warship and what exactly happened to it? so it seems to be moving he s still toward crimea. it was in the northern black sea when this mysterious fire broke out. what we re hearing from defense officials and just now on camera from pentagon press secretary john kirby is that they just don t yet know what the cause was. of course, the ukrainians are saying that they fired a neptune missile. it s an antiship missile and the russians are saying that there was a fire that broke out. it s not really clear if one or the other is true or, frankly, if both may be true, if there was a missile that was fired and then the russians weren t able to contain the fire. but john kirby say it is fire