- Russian forces in charge of nuclear arsenal seen moving a military train toward the front lines in Ukraine.
- Moscow is said to have put the world’s biggest submarine, called “city killer,” in the Arctic Circle.
- The Belgorod is more than 600 feet long and can carry “doomsday” Poseidon nuclear torpedoes.
The forces in charge of Russia’s nuclear arsenal have been seen moving a military train toward the front lines in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Moscow is said to have put the world’s biggest submarine, called “city killer,” in the Arctic Circle.
After a string of embarrassing defeats on the battlefield, including the loss of a key city in Donetsk and the most recent setbacks in the Kherson region, these latest moves could show that Vladimir Putin is ready to escalate the war.
The pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar posted a video on Sunday showing a freight train in central Russia carrying upgraded armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and other high-tech military equipment. The Daily Mail said the video was taken from a train that was carrying the APCs and other military equipment.
The secret 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear arsenal, is said to own the APCs.
The Italian newspaper La Repubblica said that NATO warned its member states, including the US, that Russia’s nuclear submarine Belgorod had left its base in the Arctic Circle.
The Belgorod is the largest submarine in the world. It is more than 600 feet long. It can carry “doomsday” Poseidon nuclear torpedoes, which Russia says could set off nuclear tsunamis 1,600 feet high that would flood coastal cities hundreds of miles away and make them unlivable for decades.
The Belgorod just joined the Russian Navy in July. It is seen as “the perfect example of a new way to fight.”
“This nuclear ‘mega torpedo’ is unique in the history of the world,” American submarine expert H.I. Sutton wrote on his website Covert Shores in March. “Poseidon is a completely new category of weapon. It will reshape naval planning in both Russia and the West, leading to new requirements and new counter-weapons.”
NATO intelligence says that the advanced submarine, which has the official name K-329 Belgorod, is still in the Arctic waters and may be heading to the Kara Sea, which is near Russia’s Novaya Zemlya island, to do a series of secret tests.
Hans Christensen, who runs the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that Poseidon torpedoes are still being made and won’t be ready for use for at least a few years.
Putin has made a number of veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the war, which has been going badly for Moscow’s beaten-up forces. The release of the nuclear convoy video and the news about the Belgorod submarine’s movements came after these threats.
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