On Thursday, investigative reporter Per Anders Johansen published a scoop about the mysterious August 8 weapons-testing accident at Nyonoska, a remote Russian Navy weapons range on the shores of the White Sea of the Arctic Ocean. Russia said that the accident killed seven people involved with the test. Although Johansen’s Altenposten piece is written in Norwegian, word of it is starting to filter out to English-language sources.
Yesterday the CBC published a piece “Radiation spike likely due to 2nd blast in Russian rocket accident, says Norwegian nuclear monitor” that summarizes Johansen’s story, saying that NORSAR, a Norwegian research foundation that (among other things) monitors compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, had picked up evidence of two explosions near Nyonoska. Although both explosions registered on NORSAR’s infrasound detectors, only the first explosion registered on their seismographs. Anne Lycke, ROSAR’s CEO, told RFE/RL that the data indicated that the second explosion was in the air, some height off the ground; there was not enough information to say whether the second explosion came from a missile.
Today the Japan Times published a helpful summary of possible weapons Russia was testing. They include:
An above-air explosion would explain the burst of radiation on August 8 that worried residents nearby. Word of their concern has since been scrubbed from Russian websites. On Wednesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin insisted that there was no threat from radiation due to the accident.
The Russian test is part of a new arms race between the United States and Russia, an arms race that neither one can win but which will endanger both sides (and the rest of the world) in the process. Russian president Vladimir Putin is gung-ho for this arms race, and President Trump and his administration is Putin’s willing and eager enabler.
Weapons expert Jeffery Lewis summarized recent Russian weapons efforts this way, in an interview by Alexander Smith for NBC News:
The Russians take missile defense extremely seriously, much more than we are willing to admit the United States. However, it takes a special kind of crazy to do this. What most countries would do would be just build more nuclear weapons because it's cheaper. Instead the Russians seem to have gone down this Soviet path of this kind of bizarre menagerie of doomsday weapons.