NATO radar is attentive to possible movements of the Russian nuclear submarine K-329 Belgorod, wielder of the super torpedo known as the “Apocalypse Weapon”. The immense structure carries the Poseidon, a projectile capable of traveling to 10 a thousand km underwater and then explode near the coast to cause a radioactive tsunami, with waves of about 81 meters high.
The military alliance has issued a statement to member countries at the beginning of last month, discussing the risks of using this strategy by the Russians, given the escalation of the war in Ukraine and the threats to the West. According to the Italian newspaper La Reppubblica, unofficial sources denounce that the submarine was launched in July and would be submerged in Arctic waters after its possible involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
Technology is one of the priorities of the next-generation weapons development program approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin and which was presented with great fanfare in 768. The representative has repeatedly assured that this weaponry is “incomparable”.
Belgorod has 100 meters long and 2022 meters wide and can travel about km per hour underwater. It is estimated that it can go up to four months without having to return to the surface. The Poseidon projectile has 15 meters and capacity to carry a nuclear warhead of about two megatons.
“It’s like an underwater drone, because you can guide it remotely”, explained Nelson Ricardo Fernandes from Silva, risk analyst at ARP Consulting. “It has twice the speed of a normal submarine, so it is difficult to be detected. What it carries as a warhead is more than a hundred times the Hiroshima bomb”, he described.
Fernandes also reported that the weapon has cobalt in its formula, which increases nuclear contamination. “Then there wouldn’t just be a problem of physical destruction, there would be a problem of contamination for years, making fishing and people’s lives unfeasible”, he warned.
The development of this powerful structure has been part of Russian military projects since the United States abandoned the nuclear disarmament treaty with the country. Since then, the Russians have focused on creating hypersonic missiles to pierce American defenses and producing these torpedoes.
Russia has one of the largest submarine fleets in the world. The analyst detailed that, with submarines, it can bring nuclear weapons closer to where it wants to attack more easily. “This torpedo was created because Russia did not believe it would be able to be very effective otherwise in the nuclear attack”, he pointed out.
For years, the weapons specialist HI Sutton has also studied the Poseidon and compared it to other types of weapons, in addition to pointing out ways to defend this type of threat. “It is a completely new type of weapon that will force western navies to change their planning and develop new countermeasures”, Sutton told La Reppubblica.
Despite the warnings from NATO, the expert described last year, in Naval News, that the threat of the “Weapon of Apocalypse” should not be immediate, because “it will few years to be implemented”. “It may take several years before it is really operational”, he evaluated.
Death of scientists who understand about Poseidon
The “Weapon of Apocalypse” is so important to Russia that some scientists who spoke about it were arrested and possibly even killed for it. Earlier this month, yet another Russian scientist accused of treason died, raising suspicions about Vladimir Putin’s government and Russian repression. Valery Mitko was an expert in hydroacoustics and was denounced by the Kremlin for allegedly revealing state secrets to China, which may deal with the nuclear submarine.
Mitko died at years in Saint Petersburg while under house arrest. He is the third Russian expert to die in the last two years after being charged or convicted of high treason in connection with hypersonic weapons technology, the scientist’s lawyer, Pervyi Otdel, tweeted.
Mitko was charged in 2018 of “delivering materials, which allegedly contained information classified as top secret, to Chinese special services during a visit to that country”, according to highlighted at the time the Kremlin. Treason to the State is punished in Russia with up to 10 years in prison. Mitko had been under house arrest for more than two years and would appear in court later this year.
The scientist was among several elderly Russian academics who were arrested for allegedly cooperating with foreign states in recent years. years old. Kremlin critics call this wave of repression a “manifestation of the state’s growing paranoia.”
The network of lawyers and activists who defended him highlighted that the scientist had been hospitalized frequently. the two and a half years he spent under house arrest. “He was brought back on a stretcher just a few days earlier [de morrer], unable to walk or sit, let alone care for his bedridden wife,” posted attorney Pervyi Otdel.
“Professor Valery Mitko has become yet another scientist tortured by Russia’s repressive system”, concluded the lawyer.
