Russian president proclaims test of Poseidon which would launch from submarine and carry nuclear engine and warhead. What we know on day 1,345
Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-propelled torpedo-drone – the Kremlin’s second announcement this week of a weapon that uses a radioactive engine. US and Russian officials have both described Poseidon as a new category of retaliatory weapon, with a nuclear warhead capable of triggering a radioactive tsunami to render coastal cities uninhabitable. Arms control experts say the weapon breaks most of the traditional nuclear deterrence and classification rules. It is launched from a submarine like a torpedo, but is claimed to be able to loiter as an underwater drone before attacking with its nuclear warhead.
Putin told soldiers wounded in the Ukraine war that the Poseidon test had taken place on Tuesday. “For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch the nuclear power unit on which this device passed a certain amount of time,” Putin said. “This is a huge success,” Putin said, claiming that the power of the Poseidon exceeded Russia’s Sarmat intercontinental missile. Putin on Sunday announced the hours-long flight of a Burevestnik missile that has been condemned as a “flying Chronobyl”: its nuclear motor potentially spews out hazardous radiation as it passes overhead.
