Nuclear Weapons may have sank with Russian flagship Moskva

Russia's Black Sea flagship which sank yesterday after an explosion on board may have been carrying nuclear warheads, analysts and experts have warned today, as a Russian politician said more than 400 sailors could have gone down with the ship.

The Moskva, a Soviet-era guided missile cruiser, sank near the port of Sevastopol on Thursday after Ukraine said it hit the ship with two cruise missiles. Today, Mykhailo Samus, director of a Lviv-based military think-tank; Andriy Klymenko, editor of Black Sea News; and Ukrainian newspaper Defence Express all warned that the Moskva could have been carrying two nuclear warheads designed to be fitted to its P-1000 'carrier killer' missiles.

If true, the loss of the warheads into the Black Sea could spark a 'Broken Arrow' incident - American military slang for potentially lethal accidents involving nuclear weapons.