Atmospheric traces of radioactive iodine discovered at several locations in northern Europe earlier this year are lending credence to US reports that a Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile crashed in the Arctic during testing.
ABC and Fox News quoted an unnamed US official on Friday as saying the missile, still in R&D, had crashed during a test in the Arctic at an unspecified date and site, although some experts question if the test really failed. In an annual state-of-the-union address in Moscow, on March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said a nuclear-powered cruise missile had been successfully tested in late 2017.
“The range is unlimited. It can maneuver for an unlimited amount of time,” Putin said of the nuclear-powered weapon. “No one in the world has anything similar.” In his address to Russia’s parliament, he also claimed Moscow has developed nuclear-armed underwater drones and next-generation intercontinental ballistic missiles that can dodge Western anti-missile shields.
According to a February 26 report in the Independent Barents Observer, Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) found minuscule amounts of radioactive iodine-131 in the air in Kotka, east of Helsinki, in late January. The Finnish government facility detected the same isotope again in late February, in an area north of Kajaani.
“The source could be a nuclear reactor, a facility producing isotopes for medical purposes, or releases from a nuclear weapons-related test,” the Norway-based Observer reported.
The levels of radioactivity were very low, ranging from 0,7 to 1,6 micro-becquerel per cubic meter air, STUK said in a press release. However, the release is believed to be recent, as radioactive iodine-131 is known to have a half-life of only eight days.
Norway’s Radiation Protection Authority has also confirmed that several air-measurement stations detected radioactive iodine in late January – at Skibotn, in northern Norway, and at Svanhovd, in the northeast. Radioactive particles were also reportedly found in air-filters in Estonia.
None of the radiation levels measured in northern Europe were said to raise health concerns.
Russia is also developing nuclear-powered plants, batteries and ship engines for use in Arctic territories and it’s possible that radiation leaked from these sources.
Russian missile exercise
While it can’t be proven that the traces of radioactive iodine are from the Russian test referenced by the US, Moscow is known to have carried out a barrage of missile tests across its Arctic territories in late October.
Scandinavian press reports called it one of the bigger nuclear missile drills in post-Soviet history. The tests ranged from the Barents Sea in Europe to Russia’s Far East and included cruise missiles fired from long-range strategic bombers, as well as ballistic missiles fired from land-based sites and submarines. Russia’s Defense Ministry said all the tests were completed successfully.
Putin gave few details of the new cruise missile during his speech, although he did show a video of a purported test-launch in late 2017. His presentation included an animated sequence that depicted the missile patrolling near the US, the South Atlantic and South America.
“The missile’s test-launch and ground trials make it possible to create a brand-new weapon, a strategic nuclear missile powered by a nuclear engine,” Putin was quoted as saying.
US officials downplayed the weapon’s purported capabilities, saying Washington was aware of the Russian project and had monitored it for some time. The missile is alleged to have crashed repeatedly in testing, including during the Arctic incident last year.
The unidentified US official quoted by American media also stressed that the new missile is not a game changer and that US strategy isn’t focused on creating a missile shield against such threats.
Defense expert Richard Bitzinger believes it’s possible for a small nuclear reactor to power a cruise missile. But he told Asia Times that announcements of such technology by Russia “are probably premature — like hypersonic missiles.” Bitzinger is a senior fellow and Coordinator of the Military Transformations Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Did Russia’s tests really fail?
Joseph Trevithick, a military researcher and author, notes a US Nuclear Posture Review, which was released last month and details Russian nuclear threats, didn’t mention Putin’s new cruise missile. He says in a March 2 analysis posted on The Drive/War Zone, a Time Inc. website, that the Pentagon has experimented with nuclear-powered ramjets since the 1960s. But the technology was deemed too cumbersome and hazardous from a fallout standpoint for use on missiles. A major hurdle was developing a nuclear power plant small enough to fit on a missile.
Trevithick, at the same time, finds it “curious” that the US has remained silent on the “failed” tests involving the Russian cruise missile — thereby missing a public opportunity to criticize Russia’s technology and attitude toward environmental hazards.
There’s also a chance that Russia’s cruise missile tests succeeded. “It’s worth noting that what the US government has recorded as ‘crashes’ may be flight tests the Russians have deemed successful. Russia would have to test the designs repeatedly in order to prove the design is reliable, especially as testing matures and the prototypes’ flight envelopes expand,” Trevithick wrote.
The missile isn’t designed to land and it’s radioactive enough to be too hazardous for recovery. Data is transmitted by telemetry and at the test flight conclusion it is "crashed" somewhere uninhabited. Elon woukd call that a planned spontaneous disassembly.
Really? Who told you this?
Lots of people seem to want to think this weapon is a failure. Who really knows? It is certain that as time passes technology "advances." I’ve read in several accounts, including this one, that the USA dropped this very idea as unfeasible, uworkable. Not at all a convincing argument against this Russia project.That was in the sixties, MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS AGO. If you need help understanding this concept of progress in warfare technology, just take one minute to try and imagine what weapons might be around fifity or sixty years from today. The world is not big enough for such horrors.
Missile defense batteries placed in Eastern Europe caused this development. Rather than replay the Cuban Missule Crisis, the Russians found another way. And the Chinese will have this soon enough as well. Nor is the Cuban card entirely out of play. As Mitterand said of missile defense: the sword can always be found to pierce the shield.
Unfortunately you are quite correct. The problem lies in our ability to adapt new technologies to attack at a much quicker pace then in defense. The sheer power of nuclear weapons means that the issue lies in delivery technologies being much easier to create (given the package is really quite small compared to the end result achieved) then to discover and intercept everything inbound. In the past year along:100 Megaton torpedos, missiles that can attack via the south pole, nuke perpulsion systems. Now consider the known unknowns such as: radar jamming, stealth and generating false signal (spoofing) images, which gives any defender an impossible task. What a nightmare!!
You call these "missle defense batteries" (in Eastern Europe). Call a spade a spade: up in your face OFFENSE.
As well, James Kelley seems to be the last one to realize Star Wars was baloney, but is a sudden new thought to him.
Mutual Destruction has always subsumed defense as moot. First or second strike are equal.
Art Laramee You may want to claim "you" are not defined by any individual or idea, but at the end of the day Your government policies when enacted are definitive, and other peoples will rightfully defined you by the direct effects your government’s policies have on them, whether some of them they willing to look at it from the whole or just segments they deem matter most.
The truth of the matter is US is the wanna be authoritarian of the world, reaching for that power to forge the world in the image it wants, but its power whether soft or hard while is substantial is still short of that goal in today’s increasingly multipolar world, and thus it WILL resort to do things that will undercut compeitition for that goal which will definitely generate aminosity and strife. You say there are some people that have expressed undying hatred for the US, but can you say some of their hatred does NOT have roots in US policies? Did US policies not generate strife and misery to groups of peoples that induced their response? Can you?!
Tony Dean Your "alliance" have been in almost every wrong war since WWII. Korean war -US along with USSR both bear responsiblity for dividing Koreans when its suppose to be their happy instance of independence from japan by supporting your dictators, Vietnam war- your South Korea puppet, aus, and Japan are all invovled. Then the last 20 years of misfortune wars in the middle east also involved these "allies" of yours. Your "alliance" doesnt automatically grant you righteousness or even lead to right actions. Take note on that!