The Kremlin has said that the secret Russian torpedo called Status 6 shouldn’t have gone on TV news. Oops.
The leak happened on state run Channel One, and the story was about President Vladimir Putin meeting military chiefs in Sochi. One general was seen checking out the diagram above of the “devastating” torpedo system. The giant torpedo’s range is given as “up to 10,000km” (6,200 miles) and depth of trajectory is “up to 1,000m” (3,300ft). It’s supposed to get launched by submarines of the 09852 “Belgorod” and 09851 “Khabarovsk” series, and if that happened, it would create “wide areas of radioactive contamination”, according to the document. It also had this to say:
The “oceanic multi-purpose 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.”
President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had this to say:
“It’s true some secret data got into the shot, therefore it was subsequently deleted. In future we will undoubtedly take preventive measures so this does not happen again.”
The Rossiiskaya Gazeta later reported details of the weapon though, they just left out the diagram. They also speculated about a super-radioactive cobalt device. This raises the question if this was truly an accidental leak or not.
- Some commentators in Russian media suggest leak of giant torpedo plan was deliberate
- Such a torpedo was envisaged in 1950s, during Cold War, by nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov – later a famous dissident and peace activist
- 100-megaton warhead could devastate US coast with massive tsunami and intense radiation
- Soviet “Tsar Bomba” was biggest nuclear device ever detonated – it was 58 megatons
- Torpedo “leak” is warning to US not to seek nuclear advantage, says Russian military analyst Igor Korotchenko.
Right before the torpedo diagram came up, Putin could be heard talking about the global anti-missile defense system the US and NATO were moving ahead with, “unfortunately ignoring our concerns and our offers of co-operation”. He also said that the Western defense project was “an attempt to undermine the existing parity in strategic nuclear weapons and essentially to upset the whole system of global and regional stability”.
[via BBC]
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