While Russian President Vladimir Putin announces a nuclear weapons race with the U.S., Moscow’s chief spokesman has confirmed that that Russian state-owned channels accidentally broadcast the design of a secret nuclear torpedo system: a drone submarine that could bypass NATO radars and all existing defense systems to attack coastlines.
With many analysts believing that the “secret’ document was broadcast on purpose to show off Russia’s nuclear capabilities, Kremlin officials claim the revelation of the submarine was accidental. According to The New York Times, Russian officials familiar with the nuclear drone submarine say the weapon had been conceived decades ago but that there had not been a single mention of it until now. The secret nuclear torpedo system will function as a long-range torpedo and avoid missile defenses by traveling under the ocean’s surface.
In what the Kremlin claims was an accident, during the broadcast of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with senior generals and representatives from the arms industry the secret document detailing “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” was shown for a few seconds by state-owned Channel One Russia and NTV. The document revealed that the submarine-fired nuclear torpedoes will be capable of destroying their targets, creating “zones of extensive radioactive contamination making them unsuitable for military or economic activity for a long period.”
Nuclear weapon against all NATO’s existing defense systems
Russia Today later reported that the deadly nuclear weapon is designed to bypass NATO radars and all existing defense systems to hit coastal areas of the Alliance. The “oceanic multiple-target Status-6 system” is designed to “destroy important economic installations of the enemy in coastal areas and cause guaranteed devastating damage to the country’s territory by creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time,” according to the secret document.
Russian and American nuclear weapons experts immediately noted the correlation between the secret nuclear weapon and last year’s comments made by a Kremlin-linked commentator and Putin’s friend, Dmitry Kiselyov, who said that Russia can easily reduce the United States to “nuclear ash.” After allegedly noticing the “accidental” leak, the Kremlin deleted the clip, while other documents seen in the broadcast had been blurred in the footage, but the screenshots managed to get leaked on the Internet. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s official spokesman, said “measures” would be taken to avoid any similar leaks of documents detailing Russia’s secret weapons.
“It’s true some secret data got into the shot, therefore it was subsequently deleted,” he told journalists, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon. “In future we will undoubtedly take preventive measures so this does not happen again,” Peskov said.
However, Putin’s spokesman refused to comment on speculation that the Kremlin may have staged the “accident” to show off its nuclear strength.
Nuclear arms race: Russia vs. U.S.
Meanwhile, commentators on the Echo of Moscow radio station argued Thursday that the revelation of the secret weapon was hardly an accident, considering the tight grip of Putin’s hand on the state-controlled news media in Russia. According to the commentators, the broadcast was yet another instance of nuclear saber-rattling from Russia amid the coldest relations with the United States since the end of the Cold War.
With the Pentagon’s top expert on Russia warning that Moscow is ready to use nuclear weapons against the U.S., Putin made a series of strong statements about Russia’s nukes on Wednesdays. In what appears to be an announcement of the start of nuclear arms race with the U.S., Putin said Russia is developing strike systems capable of penetrating any missile defense shield, including U.S. missile defense shields.
“We’ll be working on the anti-missile defense system as well, but at the first stage, as we have said on many occasions, we’ll also be working on strike systems capable of penetrating any anti-missile defense shield,” Putin said at the meeting on the development of the Russian Armed Forces, as reported by ITAR-TASS.
How likely is a U.S. vs. Russia nuclear war?
Putin added that senior officials of the Russian Armed Forces will continue discussing the development of such nuclear weapons, which could get Russia ahead of the U.S. in terms of military capabilities and thus present a direct threat to U.S. efforts to “neutralize nuclear potential of Russia.”
“The references to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats only disguise true plans. And their true purpose is to neutralize the strategic nuclear potential of other nuclear states, except the United States and its allies, first of all, the nuclear potential of our country, Russia,” Putin said.
With the Pentagon warning that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its allies, American military officials have been reported to be further escalating the tensions between the U.S. and Russia by considering sending even more U.S. troops to Europe. Such a move has a high chance to unleash military confrontation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers: the U.S. and Russia.
