Russia puts the world's largest nuclear submarine into operation - with enormous destructive power
Created: 07/13/2022 05:16
By: Stephanie Munk
The Russian nuclear submarine Belgorod was launched on April 23, 2019 and is now officially handed over to the Navy.
© Oleg Kuleshov/Imago
Officially, it serves science, but its destructive power is enormous: The Russian Navy has now put the world's largest nuclear submarine into operation.
MOSCOW - The Russian Navy has officially commissioned a new submarine - said to be the largest in the world, with massive destructive potential.
The US specialist portals
The Maritime Executive
and
Naval Technology
as well as the US military expert HI Sutton report on this.
Officially, the mighty submarine is used for research - but it is also able to transport and fire six nuclear torpedoes at the same time.
Russia now has the world's largest submarine - Officially, it's for research purposes
The dimensions of the submarine named "Belgorod", which was officially handed over to the Russian Navy on Friday, July 8, are gigantic: It is said to be 184 meters long and weigh 24,000 tons.
That would make it the longest underwater boat ever made.
Representatives from Putin's Defense Ministry were also present at the handover ceremony.
Russian officials have praised the mega-submarine's groundbreaking research capabilities, according to
The Maritime Executive
's report .
"The submarine opens up new opportunities for Russia to conduct various studies, it allows various scientific expeditions and rescue operations in the most remote areas of the world's oceans," said Nikolai Evmenocv, commander of the Russian Navy.
New Russian submarine "Belgorod" can fire nuclear torpedoes
But the submarine is also reportedly armed with an ultra-destructive payload: it's the first capable of carrying and firing "Poseidon" torpedoes.
These are also known under the nickname "doomsday drone".
Equipped with a nuclear drive, the underwater drones allegedly have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers and can be equipped with a nuclear warhead.
The submarine "Belgorod" can transport and fire six Poseidon drones at the same time.
According to military expert Sutton, Poseidon torpedoes are "the largest torpedoes ever built by any country." They were primarily used for nuclear deterrence - capable of a nuclear second strike should another country fire a nuclear weapon first.
It could hit, for example, large coastal cities such as New York City or Los Angeles.
Only on Tuesday (July 11) did a Kremlin spokeswoman warn that a military confrontation was looming between the two nuclear powers, the USA and Russia - and blamed the USA for it.
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In Russia, this weapon is openly boasted: In early May, around two months after the start of the Ukraine war, a scenario was played on Russian state television according to which a nuclear torpedo would be fired at Great Britain and trigger a 500 meter high nuclear tsunami there could.
With a single nuclear drone you could destroy a country that is "as big as Texas - or Great Britain", threatened the journalist and Putin confidante Dmitry Kiselyov on the television channel Rossiya 1.
(smu)
