At least a few things are clear: On August 8, there was an explosion at the naval test site Njonoksa on the White Sea. Several people, soldiers and nuclear specialists, have died in the mysterious incident. Other participants were contaminated by radioactivity.
But many other aspects of the story are still unclear: was a new, nuclear-powered cruise missile of the type SSC-X-9 "Skyfall" exploded in a test, as US President Donald Trump claimed? Or, as some analysts speculated, the Megatorpedo "Poseidon" to be equipped with several nuclear warheads?
If a weapon was involved in the incident, was it operational at the time of the accident? Or should she be recovered after a previous, flopped test? The US authorities are now doing this. Or was radiation, as the Russian authorities initially claimed, based on a relatively harmless radionuclide battery, such as that used to power space probes?
Russian version of the story obsolete
A response of the Federal Government to a request of the Green MEP Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, which is the SPIEGEL, now proves: The incident has taken place in any case, a nuclear chain reaction. The version with the radionuclide battery is obsolete.
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The main argument for the assessment of the government are measurements of the Russian weather service Roshydromet from the region. This would have decay products of some very short-lived noble gases found, "which in turn themselves are products of nuclear fissions," it says in the answer.
According to the government, it could have come to a so-called criticality accident. Such an incident can be thought of as the ignition of a very small nuclear bomb. Too much fissile nuclear material is located in a small space, an uncontrolled chain reaction is triggered.
It had come to a criticality accident in September 1999 in the Japanese nuclear factory Tokaimura. At that time, workers had put too much uranium into a jar. An uncontrolled chain reaction was triggered, two people died. On the International Nuclear Events Assessment Scale ("INES"), the incident was classified as category 4, with a total of seven levels.
No civil nuclear power plant in the region
Severodvinsk's incident was caused by a criticality accident as well as "an accident in connection with a reactor that was in operation during or shortly before the accident", according to the German government. However, the answer continues: "In the region around Severodvinsk, however, no civil nuclear power plant is known."
To explain the increased radiation measured after the incident, at least 10 high 19 to 10 high 20 nuclear fissions are required, according to the Federal Government. This is about the same magnitude that was present in the accident in Japanese Tokaimura in 1999. Experts add another calculation: The amount of energy produced corresponds to that of a 50-megawatt nuclear reactor that runs for one minute.
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According to the Federal Government, the "lack of evidence of other common airborne fission products indicates a retention of these fission products". That means: Whatever exploded on August 8, it probably fell into the waters of the White Sea. And this has ensured that much of the radioactive contamination, such as iodine or cesium, has been shielded.
"The Kremlin has obviously learned nothing"
Green MEP Kotting-Uhl, chairwoman of the Environment Committee in the Bundestag, criticizes that after an incident in the Mayak nuclear facility in October 2017 and now after the Severodvinsk explosion, important information is missing: "The two worst nuclear accidents since Fukushima happened in Russia But instead of clarifying it correctly, Moscow walls up and covers up, and more than three decades after Chernobyl, the Kremlin has obviously not learned anything. "
The federal government, Kotting-Uhl demands, should not accept this. "In both cases, it must consistently invade education and exploit all the possibilities available to it."
A final clarification of what has happened on the test site, there is still not, only circumstantial evidence. Also a classification on the INES scale does not exist because of the military character of the test and the missing information.
Recently, Russian authorities intercepted three US diplomats traveling by train in the Severodvinsk area, apparently to visit the Njonoksa proving ground. In Washington, it was said that the group had announced their trip to the Russian authorities.
Moscow argued that men had not been granted access to the closed area. They stated that Arkhangelsk was the destination of their journey - and yet they landed at Severodvinsk. But for the future, we would like to provide the US Embassy with a map of Russia.