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Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has repeatedly ordered Russian nuclear bombers to invade the airspace of other nations without any authorization or warning. Russian surface military vessels and submarine have routinely sailed into territorial waters of other nation without any notice or apology. He has repeatedly threatened to unleash tactical nuclear weapons in his war with Ukraine. He brags about the huge stockpile of ICBM with nuclear warheads that Russia has aimed at Western Europe and the U.S. Representatives of the Russian government have gone so far as to threaten to attack the United Kingdom with nuclear weapons. Putin has also suggested that if NATO countries assist Ukraine to sends drones deep into Russia, the result may be World War III.
On Wednesday, the 31st of November, over tea and cakes with veterans of the Ukraine war, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia had tested a new weapon.
“There is nothing like this,” the Russian leader said about the Poseidon, which is a nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable underwater drone that can be fired like a torpedo and which a senior Russian MP said could “put entire nations out of operation”.
When it was first revealed in 2018, the Russian media said the Poseidon would be able to achieve a speed of one hundred and twenty miles per hour and travel in a “constantly changing route” that would make it impossible to intercept.
Putin’s Poseidon claim came only days after the announcement that Moscow had conducted a test of its “unlimited-range” Skyfall nuclear-powered cruise missile.
Putin said that the Skyfall is “a unique product, unmatched in the world”, noting the missile was so new to the arsenal of Russia that “we are yet to identify what it is, what class of weapons [it] belongs to”.
It is not unusual for Russia to test and flaunt new weapons. Despite the ambitious nature of Russian announcements, their military value is ambiguous.
Mark Galeotti is a Russia scholar and long-time observer of Russian politics. He said, “They are basically Armageddon weapons – too powerful to be used unless you’re happy to destroy the world,”
Galeotti added that both the Poseidon and the Skyfall are second-strike, retaliatory weapons, Not even the most rabid Kremlin propagandists are suggesting anyone is preparing to launch strikes on Russia. It is also unclear whether the weapons are actually operational.
In 2019, five Russian nuclear engineers died in a rocket engine explosion at a testing range which some Russian and Western experts said was linked to the Skyfall.
In 2021, The International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) is a London-based think tank specializing in global conflict and security. The IISS noted that Russia faced “considerable technical challenges” in ensuring “the reliable performance of the nuclear-propulsion unit” of the missile.
Neither the Poseidon nor the Skyfall are entirely novel. Both of them had first been presented to the world in 2018 as part of a new array of Russian weapons that Putin called “invincible”. It is the timing of the announcements rather than their contents which could be important.
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