One of the stark images from the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been April's downing in the Black Sea of the battleship Moskva, smoke billowing from the stricken vessel named after the Russian capital somehow emblematic of the way the war has spun out for the aggressor.

While the definitive truth will come out some day, for now it is said that two Neptune anti-ship missiles fired by the Ukrainians were responsible for the spectacularly successful strike, of which the only comparable equivalent since World War II perhaps was the sinking of the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War with Britain.