Ukraine says it hit the Russian warship that attacked Snake Island, where soldiers cursed out invaders, in a missile attack

• The Russian warship that tried to attack Snake Island in February was heavily damaged.
• Ukraine said it hit the Moskva with missiles, while Russia attributed the damage to a fire.

A Russian missile cruiser that attempted to attack Ukraine's Snake Island at the start of the Russia's invasion was seriously damaged on Wednesday.

Both Russia and Ukraine said that ammunition had detonated onboard the Moskva, but gave different reasons for it.

Russia's defense ministry said the ammunition exploded due to a fire, and that the crew had been evacuated, the state-owned RIA Novosti reported.

Maxim Marchenko, the state regional administrator of Odessa, Ukraine, wrote on his Telegram channel that Ukrainian border guards had struck the vessel with Neptune anti-ship missiles, causing "serious damage." Odessa is a port city on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine.

Alexey Arestovich, a military columnist and advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed in a Thursday morning Facebook post that the Moskva was "drowned."

But around Thursday afternoon local time, the Russian Defense Ministry said the fire had been localized, its main armaments were still intact, and that the ship was still afloat, the state-owned Zvezda TV network reported. The report added that the crew had been transferred to other Black Sea vessels and the ship was being towed to port.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also told CNN Thursday that the US had not confirmed what caused the fire onboard the ship, and that the Pentagon believed that it was still afloat, The New York Times reported.

National security advisor Jake Sullivan also said in a Thursday speech that the US was not able to independently verify Ukraine's claims, the Associated Press reported.

CNN reported that poor weather conditions Wednesday night made satellite surveillance impossible.

The Mosvka and Russia's Black Sea fleet drew global attention in February after an apparent audio exchange between the warship and Ukrainian island border guards went viral.

When asked by the Russian fleet to surrender, the Ukrainian guards on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island could be heard saying: "Go fuck yourselves."

The Moskva, commissioned in 1982, is the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, according to RIA Novosti. Any damage or sinking of the vessel is likely to be a major morale boost for Ukraine.

In his Thursday speech, Sullivan also called the ship's damage "a big blow to Russia," the AP reported.

"They've had to kind of choose between two stories: One story is that it was just incompetence, and the other was that they came under attack, and neither is a particular the good outcome for them," Sullivan told the Economic Club in Washington, DC.

The cruiser is the second Russian vessel to have sustained major damage since the beginning of the invasion, Reuters reported.

On March 24, Ukraine's navy said it had damaged a large paratroop ship called the Orsk in the Black Sea fleet.