Putin’s Poseidon

“Russia can destroy NATO countries in half an hour in case of a nuclear war.” - Dmitri Rogozin, chief of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos.

“We have all the tools to do this. Tools that no one except us can brag about. We will use our most advanced weaponry.” - Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

What had Putin in mind? The RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile or the Tsirkon anti-airplane carrier hypersonic cruise missile? Or his nuclear arsenal of almost 6,000 nuclear warheads based in silos on land, bombers in the air, and submarines in the seas? Horrible weapons indeed! But toys in comparison to the Poseidon super underwater drone.

Poseidon has been in development since September 2015. Putin first mentioned it during the State of the Nation Address of 2018, flaunting it as a superweapon. NATO labels it as doomsday weapon or weapon of the apocalypse. The Russian Navy ordered 30 of them, 15 are deployed in the Arctic Ocean and 15 in Vladivostok in the Pacific.

It is 20 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter, can dive 1 kilometer deep and has an almost unlimited range thanks to two nuclear reactors that enable it to travel at a speed of 90 kilometer per hour. Thanks to that high speed it is hardly detectable and if detected almost impossible to neutralize. Its titanium hull can resist extreme pressure in the deep sea. It can be programmed to lie on the seabed and wait for a signal to switch it into combat mode and steer it to a place where it can do most damage.

Its nuclear warhead has a cobalt bomb of 2 megatons. That is one hundred time the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Exploded in one kilometer under the sea it causes a 500-meters high tsunami waves. Compare it with the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami off Sumatra that was 30 meters high and travelled up to the African East coast.

If exploded in the North Sea it would devastate in whole or in part the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

If exploded in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, e.g. near the Hawaiian Islands the number of affected states were far higher: Canada, United States, Mexico, possibly Central and South America, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Japan and Russia’s Far East. The 16 or so small island states of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, that are anyway doomed by the rising sea levels due to climate change will be washed into the sea and gone forever.

More than a billion people would die directly and millions more in the aftermath through the extreme doses of radiation in the water. Large areas will be rendered unusable and inhabitable for centuries.

The submarine Belgorod, the biggest ever built, is stationed in the Barents Sea north of Murmansk. It carries 6 Poseidons. It can release mini-subs that can cut communication cables and explode pipelines.

Recently, Maxar Technologies announced that the Belgorod has gone missing. Its disappearance sparks fear among the western world’s peoples. Should Filipinos worry too?

What an insane man Putin is that he can wallow delightfully in such destructive orgies?

Erich Wannemacher

Lapu-Lapu City