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The data on the radiation came five days after the explosion that killed five nuclear engineers and two defense personnel and that U.S. officials and outside experts have said they believe "likely" involved a nuclear-powered cruise missile. The weapon has been touted by President Vladimir Putin as the centerpiece of Russia's new nuclear arsenal, described as having almost "unlimited range" due to what is effectively an onboard nuclear reactor.
A U.S. official on Monday told ABC News that they thought it was "likely" the explosion had been caused during a test on the missile, named the SSX-C-9 Skyfall by NATO and as the 9M370 Burevestnik by Russia.
The official said the U.S. had detected increased radiation levels close to the explosion.
The delay in making the information widely public, reflects the highly secretive response from Russian authorities, who first appeared to conceal that the blast involved radiation and then only slowly released details about it -- for some, setting off echoes of the Soviet response to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986. https://abcnews.go.com/International...ry?id=64944648
When the Chernobyl plant blew, the USSR said nothing about it. Nobody knew.
Days later, a technician at a nuclear plant in Sweden (600 miles away) went through the normal radiation checks that every employee did every day. And they found radiation coming from his shoes. Checks of other employees all found the same thing.
The Swedes freaked, and locked down the plant. The sent investigators with sensitive detectors into the plant and searched it from end to end. Result: Nothing. Finally they started looking outside the plant, and found faint radiation all over the ground. They checked farther and farther away from the plant, and kept finding the same thing, faint radiation on the ground. They checked the plant for some sort of external leak, and again found nothing.
They got out charts of what the wind had been like for the last several days, and found it had been blowing mostly from the southeast. They checked with other westgern nuclear plants, and all reported they had had no leakage of any kind. No reply from the USSR, of course.
Finally sometime later, the USSR mentioned that there had been a minor incident at a plant near Kiev, Ukraine. And the rest is history.
What can nuclear-powered cruise missiles do that nuclear-powered submarines can't? You can't use nuclear-powered cruise missiles in conventional warfare because they'd spew radioactive material all around the crash site. These weapons seem like a solution in search of a problem.
What can nuclear-powered cruise missiles do that nuclear-powered submarines can't? You can't use nuclear-powered cruise missiles in conventional warfare because they'd spew radioactive material all around the crash site. These weapons seem like a solution in search of a problem.
If Russia is at the point of using missiles like this, it won't be a conventional war. Same for the USA & China. We are talking Big Boy warfare now.
Well I'll bet my submarine-launched nuclear missile reaches the target before your nuclear cruise missile. Perhaps they might be useful as a first strike weapon though?
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