A senior Ukrainian official with direct access to information from the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces tacitly acknowledged the involvement of medium altitude long endurance (MALE) armed Bayraktar TB2 drones.

Asked whether the drones were used in the attack, the official said: “Moskva was hit by two Neptune missiles with assistance of different equipment.”

A Telegram account with perceived links to Russian paramilitary organisation Wagner Group noted in a post on April 14 that the ship’s defences were diverted to a Bayraktar TB2 drone in the sky when the Ukrainian side opened fire using anti-ship missiles.

Analysts also suggested that the TB2 drones could have been used to spot the exact location of the cruiser in the Black Sea, enabling precision strikes against it.

The drones came under the spotlight early in the conflict when the Ukrainian military released video footage of them hitting Russian convoys and blowing up tanks and surface-to air missile defence systems.

Now the TB2 has emerged again as a key tool in the war.

Turkey has insisted that once sold, the drones are operated by the Ukrainians and that Ankara is not involved in their operations.

But the devastating loss for the Russian navy, for which Russian president Vladimir Putin was reportedly furious, could throw a wrench in the fragile relationship between Russia and Turkey.

The sinking of the Moskva is the single-largest blow the Russians have suffered at the hands of the Ukrainians.

It marks one of the largest ships to fall in combat since the end of World War II.

The Russian defence ministry has not acknowledged the missile attack, only saying that its Black Sea flagship caught fire and some ammunitions exploded, and that it sunk while being towed to port.

As part of the information war, the Russian defence ministry released a 26-second video on Saturday showing admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Russian Navy, meeting with around 100 sailors from the Moskva in Crimea.

Russia has said all of the 500 crew were rescued after the blast, but has provided no evidence for the claims.

The Ukrainians, meanwhile, said that two of its indigenous Neptune anti-ship missiles hit the Russian vessel – a claim matched by a US assessment.

Unverified photos have emerged on social media that convey the scale of the damage.

Defence analysts have been studying the role that the Turkish-made drones may have played in assisting the strike.

“Reports that Turkish TB2 drones were involved in the attack either as a distraction for Moskva or as location spotter of Moskva are both quite possible,” said Can Kasapoglu, director of the security and defence studies programme at the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), a Turkish think-tank.

Defence industry analyst Arda Mevlutoglu pointed to open source intelligence and official Russian statements that drones were active in the area.

On April 10, a TB2 mobile ground-control station was spotted in Odessa, Mevlutoglu said.

Then on April 12, Russia’s defence ministry released a video saying a Russian frigate destroyed a Bayraktar-type of unmanned aerial vehicle near the western coast of the Crimean Peninsula, without showing the impact moment of the target.

“The UAV carried out reconnaissance of the actions of Black Sea Force ships” of Russia, the posting said.

Two days later, the Moskva sank.

Mevlutoglu also noted that rear admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, the commander of the Ukrainian naval forces, has made past comments that imply that TB2 drones would be used together with Neptune missile batteries for target spotting.

Although the exact number of TB2 drones currently in Ukraine’s arsenal is not known, Mevlutoglu estimates it to be somewhere between 24 and 40.

Mevlutoglu said the main radar system on the Moskva is based on an old technology that is meant to serve as an early-warning system against fixed-wing combat aircraft, bombers, helicopters and cruise missiles.

But the “Bayraktar TB2 is much smaller, with a low radar cross-section and lower flight speed, making it very likely that it fell below the detection threshold of Moskva radars”.

Geopolitical consultant Rich Outzen, a retired US military officer and state department policy planner, told Nikkei that the TB2 is “a jack-of-all-trades” weapon.

“Turkish forces have proved the TB2’s effectiveness as a strike platform in Libya and Syria, as did their Azerbaijani allies in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Outzen said.

“Less well known – because less apt for video display – is the TB2’s role as a communications relay, spotter, jammer, sensor, target designator and decoy. These capabilities have been honed especially in Syria and northern Iraq operations. The Ukrainians have taken this to a new level with maritime ops, as a force multiplier, evidenced by the sinking of the Moskva.”

The Russian ship was equipped with anti-ship, anti-air and anti-submarine missiles, providing important cover for itself and to other navy vessels and submarines of the Black Sea Fleet.

Some of those vessels are believed to be able to strike Ukraine with long-range Kalibr missiles.

But the sinking of the Moskva may force Moscow to rethink plans.

A senior Pentagon official told reporters that following the Moskva incident, the remaining Russian ships in the Black Sea “have moved out, away from the northern areas where they were operating in”.

Before the Moskva incident, a senior Turkish defence industry source familiar with the performance of the TB2 told Nikkei, that the drone “has been a combat-proven system against various air defence systems as tested in Syria, Libya and (the) Azerbaijan-Armenia war, even before the Ukraine war.

“It is much cheaper than a US MQ-9 Reaper drone so if need be, you can even sacrifice a few to take out a much more expensive and difficult to replace missile defence systems. You can quickly produce 50 more drones but they cannot produce five new missile defence systems.”