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Russia Tells Nuclear Watchdog: Radiation From Blast Is ‘None of Your Business’

August 22, 2019 Posted by | Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Absolutely no need for Russia and the US to be adversaries and enemies

I visited Russia’s nuclear city and don’t want to relive the Cold War  

Commentary: One era of nuclear brinksmanship was enough for CNET’s Stephen Shankland, who visited the Russian nuclear weapons center of Sarov just after the first Cold War ended. CNET, BY STEPHEN SHANKLAND
AUGUST 18, 2019  I spent more than five years as a reporter in Los Alamos, New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb, home to a major national laboratory, and the 18,000-person town where I grew up. I covered everything from President Bill Clinton visiting the lab to mostly harmless radioactive cat poop triggering radiation alarms at the county landfill. But the story that made the biggest impression on me took place thousands of miles away, in Russia.

In May 1995, I was part of a seven-person civilian delegation that traveled to Los Alamos sister city Sarov, about 230 miles east of Moscow. It’s the home of the institute where Russia developed its first atomic bomb. Our visit was timed to coincide with a 50th anniversary celebration of the end of the Great Patriotic War, aka World War II, which for the Russians ended when the Germans capitulated in May 1945.

It was a sobering visit — the economic devastation; the Soviet-era microphones bugging away in our hotel; the angry and impoverished veterans; and the daunting quantities of vodka, champagne and cognac that accompanied us during a weeklong series of banquets. I spoke with Viktor Adamsky, one of the designers of the biggest nuclear bomb of all time, the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, which was more powerful than all the bombs dropped in World War II.

I’m remembering it now because I’ve recently interviewed Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and a key leader of the US-Russian lab collaboration that led to my trip.

Back when US-Russian relations were thawing

During the time of my trip, relations between Russia and the US were warming, but now they’re cooling once again. That troubles Hecker — even though he spent much of his career designing the nuclear weapons the US aimed at the then-USSR.

It troubles me, as well. I grew up during the Cold War, and I’m not eager to introduce my children to concepts like nuclear winter and megadeath. And even as treaties between the US and Russia fizzle out and the two countries rev up another arms race, worries are piling up about the nuclear weapons capabilities of Iran and North Korea, too.

But Hecker stresses the similarities between the US and Russia — “They’re so much like us,” he says……

Each city benefited from its government’s largesse during the Cold War. “When I first came here, I thought it was a paradise. Such food!” one Sarov man told me. Meanwhile, Los Alamos received a federal funding boost for its schools and its police and fire departments. Each city suffered when government funding dropped with the end of the Cold War. Both cities teem with elite researchers who play important military roles and are curious about what makes the universe tick. Both cities have nuclear weapons museums showing off the hulking casings of early bombs…….

Hecker has a lot more of those connections. He’s friends with plenty of Russians and sees their cultural values as very similar to ours. And he’s keeping his communication links alive even though the US-Russia lab-to-lab collaboration project he helped begin is now all but dead. He’ll take his 57th trip to Russia in November.

The two countries can move past sticking points like NATO’s eastward expansion and Russia’s military action in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Hecker says. Today’s nationalistic fervor might make it hard to defrost the relationship, but seeing the world from the other side’s perspective will help, he says.

“There is absolutely no need for Russia and the US to be adversaries and enemies,” Hecker tells me. “Absolutely none.” https://www.cnet.com/news/i-visited-russia-nuclear-city-sarov-dont-want-to-relive-cold-war/

August 20, 2019 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Russia Testing Nuclear-Powered Mega-Torpedo Near Where Deadly Explosion Occurred

Russia Testing Nuclear-Powered Mega-Torpedo Near Where Deadly Explosion Occurred  https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/08/17/russia-testing-nuclear-powered-mega-torpedo-near-where-deadly-explosion-occurred/#7f3e00632d7fH I Sutton,     Aerospace & DefenseI cover the changing world of underwater warfare.  Details are still emerging of the explosion of a nuclear-powered engine that killed at least seven people in northern Russia last week. Conflicting reports, rumors and speculation center around whether the engine was for a nuclear-powered cruise missile, codenamed Skyfall by NATO, or some other weapon-related reactor. One of the possible weapons in the frame is the Poseidon mega-torpedo. This new weapon is described as an Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo by the U.S. government

One of the possible weapons in the frame is the Poseidon mega-torpedo. This new weapon is described as an Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo by the U.S. government.

The unique drone-like weapon is in an entirely new category. Launched from a large submarine, potentially from under the protection of the arctic ice cap, it would have virtually unlimited range and Russia claims that it will run so deep that it cannot realistically be countered with existing weapons. It’s designed to be armed with a nuclear warhead, reportedly of 2 megatons, which represents a slow but unstoppable death-knell for the residents of coastal cities such as New York or San Francisco in the event of a nuclear war. The Russian Ministry of Defense also claims that it will be usable against high value maritime targets such as the U.S. Navy’s carrier battle groups.

It is massive, around 30 times larger than the heavyweight torpedoes commonly used aboard submarines, and twice as large as submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Specially constructed submarines will be able to carry six Poseidon each. Unlike existing missile submarines, which are termed SSBNs, this type of submarine doesn’t even have a designation yet. Possibly SSDN will be used to denote a nuclear powered drone-carrying submarine.

Poseidon is being tested in the region, my analysis of information gathered from public sources shows. For trials it is being launched by a special submarine based in Severodvinsk, near the Nyonoksa testing site where the explosion occurred. The submarine is named Sarov after the city where the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, which developed the nuclear engine involved in the explosion, is based. Sarov is also the city where the victims of the blast were laid to rest. In recent years the Russian Ministry of Defense has been open about Sarov’s role in the tests. The submarine rarely puts to sea but my analysis of information gathered from public sources shows that it did venture out into the White Sea in June, pointing to possible recent test launches.

Poseidon was first revealed to the public in dramatic fashion by Russian state media in the fall of 2015, when a slide on the new weapon was visible during a meeting with President Putin.  The apparent security lapse was probably not by accident.

The project itself has since been traced back much further to the end of the Cold War, and defense watchers had an inkling of a giant torpedo-like weapon under development for about five years prior to the staged leak.

The weapon has been in testing since around 2014 and is likely to be nearing the production phase with deployments at sea from the early 2020s. The first submarine slated to carry the weapon operationally was launched in April in Severodvinsk. The gigantic Belgorod submarine is still undergoing fitting out and will not be operational for a few years. The second submarine, Khabarovsk, is also nearing completion and two more SSDNs are expected to follow, providing Russia with a new dimension in nuclear deterrence.

August 19, 2019 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Radiation from a missile explosion has not spread beyond Russia

No sign radiation from a missile explosion has spread beyond Russia, New Scientist :   12 August 2019, By Adam Vaughan, An explosion at a missile testing range in north-western Russia killed five people working for the state nuclear energy agency and saw radiation levels spike locally, but there is no sign the radiation has spread to other countries……

“Russian authorities have confirmed the involvement of radioactive materials in the accident, but not the specific weapons system that was being tested,” says Ankit Panda at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. “It’s important to clarify that the radiological event in this case is not due to the presence of nuclear weaponry, but what may be a prototype nuclear propulsion unit for a cruise missile.” He believes the difficulties and dangers of such a system mean it may never see deployment.

Radiation levels in Severodvinsk, 25 miles away, jumped for nearly an hour, at levels of up to 2 microsieverts per hour, which is below levels considered dangerous. A statement on the city’s website reported a “short-term” spike on Thursday, but the statement had been removed by Friday…….

no radiation from the recent incident appears to have reached Europe. The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority says it has detected nothing unusual yet, and the UK’s radiation monitoring network, RIMNET, told New Scientist it has had no reports of other countries recording increases in radiation levels.

“Lack of detection by Norway and Finland so far makes us assume only trace concentrations may reach Europe,” says Rashid Alimov at Greenpeace Russia. Modelling by Ivan Kovalyets at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine suggests only small concentrations might reach into Ukraine.  https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213200-no-sign-radiation-from-a-missile-explosion-has-spread-beyond-russia/

August 19, 2019 Posted by | environment, Russia | Leave a comment

Russia’s ‘flying Chernobyl’ – mystery new nuclear weapon

Russia’s mysterious ‘new’ nuclear weapon a ‘flying Chernobyl’,  https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/russia-s-mysterious-new-nuclear-weapons-a-flying-chernobyl-20190816-p52ho5.html, By Gregg Herken, August 16, 2019 Washington: Last week, Vladimir Putin’s government cryptically announced that there had been an explosion at a missile test centre in remote northern Russia that involved the release of radioactive materials. Initially, two people were said to have been killed; the death toll was subsequently raised to seven. A nearby village was ordered evacuated, then the villagers were told to stay put.

US analysts think the accident involved the prototype of a nuclear-powered cruise missile that the Russians call Burevestnik, or Petrel, but is known in the West by its NATO designation, Skyfall. Putin has called it “a fundamentally new type of weapon” – an “invincible missile” with virtually unlimited range, easily able to evade US defences.

When Skyfall was first announced, early last year, some Western military analysts started hyperventilating. “That’s a technological breakthrough and a gigantic achievement,” claimed one. “These weapons are definitely new, absolutely new.”

But in fact, these “new” missiles are a throwback to the early days of the Cold War. And back then, it was the United States that developed a nuclear-powered cruise missile, in the early 1960s.

“Project Pluto” was part of a Pentagon program known as Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, a clunky name almost certainly designed to yield its catchier acronym, SLAM. The missile was cancelled in 1964, never having taken flight. Nuclear-powered cruise missiles were not a good idea then, and they are not a good idea now.

That’s not to say that such weapons are not impressive, in a way.

SLAM envisioned a locomotive-sized missile flying at three times the speed of sound near treetop level, tossing out hydrogen bombs along the way and spewing radiation in its wake. (In 1990, when I worked at the National Air and Space Museum, I researched the history of the project for an article in Air and Space magazine.)

There was a reason Pluto’s inventors, at the Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory in California, dubbed it “the weapon from Hell.” The noise level on the ground when Pluto went by was expected to be 150 decibels. (The Saturn V moon rocket, by comparison, produced 200 decibels at full thrust.)

But ruptured eardrums would have been the least of your worries if you were in the neighbourhood.

The shock wave alone might have been lethal. And since Pluto’s nuclear ramjet engine ran at 2500 degrees Fahrenheit (1371 degrees), portions of the missile would have been red-hot — literally “frying chickens in the barnyard” on the way to its targets.

Indeed, SLAM operated on the same principle as the errant low-flying B-52 bomber in Dr Strangelove. As Major Kong observed to his crew, “they might harpoon us, but they dang sure ain’t going to spot us on no radar screen.”

An alternate idea was to tie Pluto to a tether at the Nevada Test Site. (“That would have been some tether,” dryly observed another scientist at the lab.) Finally, what do you do with a highly radioactive missile once it’s been tested? Dumping it in the ocean was the solution offered back then. And it is probably Putin’s preferred solution now.

Ultimately, in the United States, cooler heads prevailed.  Six weeks after the successful static test of Livermore’s nuclear engine in Nevada in July 1964, the Pentagon pulled the plug on Pluto.

Intercontinental-range ballistic missiles promised to destroy targets in the Soviet Union well before Pluto got to them, with equal certainty and a lot fewer associated risks. SLAM, its critics said, stood for “slow, low and messy.”

But Pluto, it seems, has risen again, this time in a Russian incarnation – a nuclear-powered Frankenstein, a flying Chernobyl.

Putin’s Skyfall cruise missile also has a seagoing sibling: a giant nuclear-powered torpedo, dubbed Poseidon, designed to destroy US port cities with a multi-megaton blast.

Poseidon bears a striking resemblance to the idea that Russia’s Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Andrei Sakharov, came up with in the early 1960s. When Sakharov told a Soviet admiral of his proposal, however, the latter was “shocked and disgusted by the idea of merciless mass slaughter.”

Feeling “utterly abashed,” the physicist abandoned the concept and never raised it again. “I’m no longer worried that someone may pick up on the idea,” Sakharov wrote in his memoirs, published in 1990. “It doesn’t fit in with current military doctrines, and it would be foolish to spend the extravagant sums required.”

Plainly, times have changed. Yet as several experts have since noted, it is also possible that Putin’s amazing new weapons are only part of a propaganda campaign, a response to plans announced by the Trump administration to expand and modernise America’s nuclear arsenal.

If so, Putin’s ploy is reminiscent of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s hollow Cold War boast that the USSR was turning out ICBMs “like sausages.” (As Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, later observed, his father wasn’t exactly lying: The Soviets weren’t making sausages then, either.)

Of course, flying nuclear reactors and giant nuclear-armed undersea drones could do a lot of damage to cities if they really existed and were ever used. But the real danger of Putin’s Potemkin arsenal is that it will – as Khrushchev’s boast did decades ago – spark a US overreaction and lead to pressure to revive ideas like Livermore’s Pluto and Sakharov’s Poseidon: forgotten relics of Cold War 1.0 that are best left dead and buried.

Herken is an emeritus professor of American diplomatic history at the University of California. From 1988 to 2003, he was the curator of military space at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

August 19, 2019 Posted by | Russia | Leave a comment

Russian doctors kept in the dark about patients being nuclear accident victims

Russian Doctors Say They Weren’t Warned Patients Were Nuclear Accident Victims
One doctor was reportedly later found to have a radioactive isotope in their muscle tissue.   https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/08/16/exclusive-russian-doctors-say-they-werent-warned-patients-were-nuclear-accident-victims-a66896

By Evan Gershkovich and Pjotr Sauer  16 Aug 19, Five hospital staff workers, including senior doctors, told The Moscow Times that FSB agents had their colleagues sign non-disclosure agreements.The three injured men arrived at the hospital around 4:30 pm, naked and wrapped in translucent plastic bags. The state of the patients made staff suspect they were dealing with something very serious. But the only information they had at the time was that there had been an explosion at a nearby military site around noon.

“No one — neither hospital directors, nor Health Ministry officials, nor regional officials or the governor — notified staff that the patients were radioactive,” one of the clinic’s surgeons told The Moscow Times by phone this week. “The hospital workers had their suspicions, but nobody told them to protect themselves.”

The hospital was Arkhangelsk Regional Clinical Hospital, a public healthcare center in Russia’s far north, and the day was last Thursday, Aug. 8. After the explosion, radiation spiked to as much as 20 times its normal level for about 30 minutes in the region’s second largest city of Severodvinsk. Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom has reported that the accident killed five of its staff members.

Russian authorities are keeping the circumstances surrounding the explosion shrouded in mystery. With government agencies releasing information piecemeal amid a mass of contradictions, the state’s response to the accident echoes its behavior after Chernobyl, the catastrophic 1986 nuclear accident in then-Soviet Ukraine.

Official reaction has included initial denials that radiation spiked at all, and an announcement four days after the accident that the village of Nyonoksa, close to the military site, would be evacuated. Authorities later denied that they had ever ordered villagers to leave. The lack of information has led to confusion among locals, who reportedly scrambled to buy up all of the iodine, a chemical used to limit harm to radiation exposure, in the Arkhangelsk region.

They are not the only ones who have been left confused and demanding answers. Four male doctors at the Arkhangelsk hospital — two in senior positions — and a medical worker told The Moscow Times that its staff have been left shocked and angered by the events that took place. The doctors spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a period of heightened attention by Russian security services.

While none of the doctors worked directly with the patients in question, they all attended a briefing at the hospital on Aug. 12 by a deputy health minister for the Arkhangelsk region and are in constant communication with colleagues who did treat the victims, they said. The doctors said that all staff who worked with the patients directly were asked by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents on Aug. 9 to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from talking about what happened.

“They weren’t forced to sign them, but when three FSB agents arrive with a list and ask for those on the list to sign, few will say no,” said one of the senior doctors.

The Moscow Times was unable to speak with any of the doctors who tended to the three patients or obtain a copy of the reported non-disclosure agreements.

But the versions of events that the five men recounted are identical. They also concur with two additional anonymous accounts published on Aug. 15 — one from a female doctor at the hospital in a local news outlet, Northern News, and one in a local chat group on the popular Telegram messenger.

All seven of the accounts express pointed frustration with the authorities for keeping medical staff in the dark about the risks they were facing.

“The staff is furious to say the least,” said one of the doctors who spoke to The Moscow Times. “This is a public hospital. We weren’t prepared for this and other people could have been affected.”

“Still, everyone did their jobs professionally,” he added.

All of the accounts also ask why state personnel exposed to radiation would be sent to a civilian hospital, rather than a military one, in the first place. The doctors who spoke to The Moscow Times said they and their colleagues had prepared a thorough list of questions for Health Ministry representatives who visited on Aug. 12 to clarify the staff’s concerns, and not a single one was answered clearly.

The Health Ministry, the FSB, the Arkhangelsk’s governor’s office and the Arkhangelsk Regional Clinical Hospital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Rather than answers, the doctors were offered a trip to Moscow for tests. All four doctors said that about 60 of their colleagues, including four or five paramedics who had transported the patients to the hospital, took up the offer. The first group flew to Moscow hours after the meeting with the Health Ministry representatives, they said.

According to three of the doctors, including both senior sources, one of the doctors flown to Moscow was found to have Caesium-137 — a radioactive isotope that is a byproduct of the nuclear fission of uranium-235 — in their muscle tissue. One of the sources said the affected doctor had told him so directly, though he was not informed about the amount or concentration of the isotope found.

The affected doctor declined a request for an interview.

“[The person is] beaten down emotionally, but physically seems to be fine, for the moment,” the doctor who spoke to The Moscow Times said, describing his colleague.

The doctors said that after two groups flew to Moscow the rest of the flights were cancelled. They also said after the results had come back radiation experts were flown to Arkhangelsk to carry out the tests there instead.

Yuri Dubrova, an expert on the effects of radiation on the body at the University of Leicester in the U.K., said by phone that the patients brought to the hospital most likely had high doses of the isotope on their skin. The level of danger for the Arkhangelsk doctor all depends on how much the person was exposed to, Dubrova said.

“If the dosage wasn’t very high, the person should be able to fully recover within a week if they are given clean food and water,” he said.

But Dubrova also noted that the lack of information is what would have put the doctor in harm’s way.

“Exposure to Caesium-137 is quite preventable — all you need to do is wash the patient really well,” he said. “But the doctors were made vulnerable to radiation because they hadn’t been told what had happened.”

According to the doctors, the operating theater, located on a third-floor wing of the hospital, was sealed off until Aug. 13. They said that Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor and the Emergency Situations Ministry inspected the hospital over the following days.

The doctors also said Rospotrebnadzor representatives have told staff that the hospital is now safe.

Last Friday, Aug. 9, the Baza news outlet, which has close ties to Russia’s security services, reported that men injured during the blast had been brought to a Moscow clinic for radiation sickness treatment. The outlet published a video of a convoy of police cars and ambulances travelling through the Russian capital.

According to three of the doctors, two of the three patients that were treated at the Arkhangelsk Regional Clinical Hospital didn’t even reach Moscow, dying en route to the airport.

They said that security services officers who visited the hospital on Aug. 9 recovered and deleted all of the information about the incident that was in the hospital’s records.

“It’s as if the event no longer exists,” one of the doctors said. “With no documentation the staff couldn’t try to take anyone to court, even if they wanted to.”

He added that some of his colleagues who travelled to Moscow had done so to try to gather evidence to prove the accident happened.

“When all of our colleagues are back in Arkhangelsk, we will sit down and discuss what we should do next,” another doctor said, noting that so far the staff is strongly considering appealing to the prosecutor general.

“Every rule was broken,” he added. “Why were these patients brought to a civilian hospital and not a military one? Why were staff not told to implement proper safety measures? Why were paramedics allowed to transfer them without wearing the right protective gear?”

The events bring to mind a chilling scene in the recent HBO miniseries ‘Chernobyl.’ When the first patients arrive at a local hospital after the accident, doctors begin treating them without protective gear. One cautious nurse explains that their clothes should be burned, but the doctors are depicted handling the toxic items with bare hands.

“It’s exactly like the show’s creator said,” one of the doctors said, referring to a tweet from Craig Mazin three days after the Severodvinsk explosion. “Thirty-three years later and our government hasn’t learned a thing. They keep trying to hide the truth.”

 

August 17, 2019 Posted by | Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Russia’s fast nuclear reactor project is postponed

Rosatom postpones fast reactor project, report says, WNN, 13 August 2019

Rosenergoatom is expected to receive about RUB280 billion (USD4 billion) less in state funding for the construction of new nuclear reactors in Russia owing to the postponement of its fast neutron reactor programme, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported last week, citing anonymous sources. Rosenergoatom is the nuclear power plant operator subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Rosatom’s investment plan received preliminary approval during a meeting in the Russian Energy Ministry on 2 August, according to the article, with funding out to 2035 to total RUB880 billion and not the RUB1.16 trillion Rosatom had allocated for the two new VVER-1200 units under construction for the Kursk II project, units 3 and 4 for the Leningrad II project and a BN-1200 fast reactor at Beloyarsk. Commissioning of the BN-1200 has been postponed to 2036, the article said, from the previous target of 2027.

Financing to pay for the new units will be paid back over 20 years, with an average rate of return on investment of 10.5% per year, the article said. Rosatom is prepared to consider a lower rate of return, it added.

Russia’s new investment cycle for its electricity sector will also take into account modernisation work at thermal power plants, the construction of remote energy facilities and the development of renewable energy sources. The funds must however be “distributed among market participants so that wholesale energy market prices do not rise above inflation”, the article said. The reduction in funding reflects “the restriction on tariff growth by inflation”, it added, and thus the launch of the BN-1200 will “most likely be postponed to 2036 in order to reduce energy market spending”……. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Rosatom-postpones-fast-reactor-project-report-say

August 17, 2019 Posted by | Russia, technology | Leave a comment

Russian Region Orders Gas Masks After Deadly Nuclear Blast

Russian Region Orders Gas Masks After Deadly Nuclear Blast – Reports top https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/08/15/russian-region-orders-gas-masks-after-deadly-nuclear-blast-reports-a66856

A region in northern Russia has ordered more than 1,000 gas masks after a deadly explosion led to a spike in radiation, Russia’s Open Media news website reported.

At least five nuclear experts were killed in the explosion, which took place during a rocket test at sea off the coast of the Arkhangelsk region last Thursday. The incident has been cloaked in mystery, leading outside experts to theorize that the blast occurred during testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

A region in northern Russia has ordered more than 1,000 gas masks after a deadly explosion led to a spike in radiation, Russia’s Open Media news website reported.

At least five nuclear experts were killed in the explosion, which took place during a rocket test at sea off the coast of the Arkhangelsk region last Thursday. The incident has been cloaked in mystery, leading outside experts to theorize that the blast occurred during testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

The regional administration has announced an auction for 1,200 gas masks worth 4.6 million rubles ($70,000), Open Media reported Wednesday.

The gas masks must be able to protect from “radioactive, toxic, biological and chemical hazardous substances in man-made accidents,” according to the auction’s description cited by Open Media.

The Arkhangelsk region is reportedly expected to announce the winner later in August.

The local civil defense authority called the bulk purchase “a usual replenishment of provisions” and said it had been scheduled on July 31.  “You’re familiar with [Russia’s law regulating government procurement] 44-FZ, right? Can you imagine how long it takes to hold an auction?” the unnamed Arkhangelsk region civil defense official told Open Media.

Officials have been slow to release information about the blast, which led to a radiation spike in a nearby city and sparked heightened demand for iodine.

Greenpeace Russia has said that the authorities “forgot” to report a three-day rise in beta radiation levels in addition to the brief spike in gamma radiation which had been “widely disseminated” to the media following the explosion.

“It is important to understand which radionuclides were released into the environment. Their accumulation … and impact on nature and humans depend on this,” Greenpeace said in a statement on Wednesday.

August 17, 2019 Posted by | Russia, safety | Leave a comment

Confusion and secrecy following Russian explosion, backflip on evacuation of village

Russian military orders village evacuation, then cancels it, following explosion that killed five nuclear scientists, Secrecy surrounding an explosion that killed five nuclear scientists and caused a spike in radiation levels has sparked fears of a cover-up in Russia, with authorities backflipping on orders to evacuate a nearby village. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-14/russian-nuclear-explosion-mystery/11411470

Key points:

  • Medics who treated victims of an accident have been sent to Moscow for medical examination
  • Russia’s state weather service said radiation levels spiked in Severodvinsk by up to 16 times
  • Many Russians spoke angrily on social media of misleading reports reminiscent of Chernobyl

The explosion took place on Thursday at a naval weapons range on the coast of the White Sea in northern Russia.

State nuclear agency Rosatom said the accident occurred during a rocket test on a sea platform.

The rocket’s fuel caught fire after the test, causing it to detonate, it said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

Two days later, after a spike in radiation levels was reported, Rosatom conceded the accident involved nuclear materials.

On Tuesday (local time), the Russian military ordered residents of the small village of Nyonoksa to temporarily evacuate, citing unspecified activities at the nearby navy testing range.

But a few hours later, it said the planned activities were cancelled and told the villagers they could go back to their homes, said Ksenia Yudina, a spokeswoman for the Severodvinsk regional administration.

Local media in Severodvinsk said Nyonoksa residents regularly received similar temporary evacuation orders, usually timed to tests at the range.

Russia’s state weather service said radiation levels spiked in the Russian city of Severodvinsk, about 30 kilometres west of Nyonoksa, by up to 16 times following the explosion.

Emergency officials issued a warning to all workers to stay indoors and close the windows, while spooked residents rushed to buy iodide, which can help limit the damage from exposure to radiation.

‘People need reliable information’

Many Russians spoke angrily on social media of misleading reports reminiscent of the lethal delays in acknowledging the Chernobyl accident three decades ago.

US experts said they suspected the cause was a botched test of a nuclear-powered cruise missile commissioned by President Vladimir Putin.

Boris L Vishnevsky, a member of the St. Petersburg City Council, told the New York Times that dozens of people had called asking for clarification about radiation risks.

“People need reliable information,” Mr Vishnevsky told the Times.

“And if the authorities think there is no danger, and nothing needs to be done, let them announce this formally so people don’t worry.”

The five scientists that died in the explosion were buried Monday in the closed city of Sarov — which houses a nuclear research facility and is surrounded by fences patrolled by the military.

While hailing the deceased as the “pride of the atomic sector”, Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev pledged to continue developing new weapons. “The best tribute to them will be our continued work on new models of weapons, which will definitely be carried out to the end,” Mr Likhachev was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.

Medics who treated victims sent to Moscow

Medics who treated the victims of an accident were sent to Moscow for medical examination, TASS news agency cited an unnamed medical source as saying on Tuesday.

The medics sent to Moscow have signed an agreement promising not to divulge information about the incident, TASS cited the source as saying.

US President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Monday the United States was “learning much” from the explosion and the United States had “similar, though more advanced, technology”.

He said Russians were worried about the air quality around the facility and far beyond, a situation he described as “Not good!”

But when asked about his comments on Tuesday, the Kremlin said it, not the United States, was out in front when it came to developing new nuclear weapons.

“Our president has repeatedly said that Russian engineering in this sector significantly outstrips the level that other countries have managed to reach for the moment, and it is fairly unique,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.Mr Putin used his state-of-the nation speech in 2018 to unveil what he described as a raft of invincible new nuclear weapons, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile, an underwater nuclear-powered drone, and a laser weapon.

Tensions between Moscow and Washington over arms control have been exacerbated by the demise this month of a landmark nuclear treaty.

August 15, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA abandoned the Nuclear-Powered Missile long ago due to its extreme danger. It seems that Russia just tried it again.

Why the U.S. Abandoned Nuclear-Powered Missiles More Than 50 Years Ago

President Donald Trump says the U.S. has a missile like the one that killed seven in the Russian arctic. That’s untrue, because the U.S. abandoned the idea decades ago.

By Kyle Mizokami

Aug 13, 2019  Last week’s mysterious nuclear accident in Russia became even more mysterious as the government admitted that a small nuclear reactor had exploded, killing seven people.

Evidence is piling up that the incident is somehow related to Russia’s development of a nuclear-powered cruise missile, and President Donald Trump took to Twitter to state that the U.S. has a similar system. One problem: the U.S. looked into nuclear-powered cruise missiles more than half a century ago before rejecting them as impractical.

Last week’s mysterious nuclear accident in Russia became even more mysterious as the government admitted that a small nuclear reactor had exploded, killing seven people.

Evidence is piling up that the incident is somehow related to Russia’s development of a nuclear-powered cruise missile, and President Donald Trump took to Twitter to state that the U.S. has a similar system. One problem: the U.S. looked into nuclear-powered cruise missiles more than half a century ago before rejecting them as impractical.

Earlier reports of the August 8th incident stated that two individuals from Russia’s Defense Ministry were killed and six badly injured. Russia’s nuclear energy agency, has since admitted five of its employees were also killed in the explosion, with another three receiving injuries and burns. According to the Guardian, Rosatom said it was working on a number of experimental technologies, including “miniaturised sources of energy using [fissile] materials,” though a spokesperson did not explain how such research was related to the explosion.

After the incident, Greenpeace accused the Russian government of a coverup, using its own data to claim that radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk briefly spiked up to twenty times normal levels. The levels were not serious enough to warrant public health warnings.

A consensus is emerging that the nuclear accident is in some way related to Russia’s development of the Burevestnik (“Storm Petrel”) nuclear-powered cruise missile, known by NATO as the SSC-X-9 Skyfall. One advantage of a nuclear-powered missile would be a nearly unlimited range, allowing the missile to fly much longer than conventionally powered cruise missiles. This would allow the missile to fly around U.S. air defenses, skirting entire continents if necessary.

The United States tried to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile in the 1950s and 1960s but abandoned the project as impractical. The weapon was known as Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, or SLAM, and it would have been the most dangerous nuclear weapon ever made.

SLAM, also known unofficially known as “The Big Stick,” was designed as a low-flying cruise missile. A rocket booster would launch SLAM into the air and boost it to speeds where its nuclear-powered ramjet engine would kick in. Once activated, the engine would give SLAM a top speed of Mach 3.5. The YouTube channel Curious Droid has a great mini-history on this doomsday weapon:

The missile would fly unusually low for a missile of its time, just 1,000 feet, to avoid enemy radars. The supersonic shockwave was projected to leave a trail of devastation, flattening forests, buildings, and killing anyone in the missile’s flight path.

SLAM, despite being advertised as a missile, was actually more like an unmanned bomber. Instead of a single warhead, it carried up to 26 hydrogen bombs, each hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. SLAM could fly a predetermined route over an enemy country or even continent, ejecting H-bombs on targets below. Once out of bombs SLAM would fly one last mission, running into a final target that would shower the target zone with lethal radioactivity.

SLAM was never built because it was too dangerous to even test. The dangerous levels of radioactivity unleashed by the nuclear engine was a big plus in some apocalyptic wartime scenario, but it couldn’t even be tested in the skies over the U.S. SLAM was also overtaken by intercontinental ballistic missile development, which could deliver a thermonuclear warhead against a target in Russia in half an hour.

Whatever Russia was really testing last week in the arctic, it’s likely something that should’ve remained an unused relic of the Cold War. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a28690053/russia-nuclear-powered-missile-skyfall/

August 15, 2019 Posted by | Russia, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, technology, weapons and war | 1 Comment

‘Dirty bomb’: Mystery Russian ‘superweapon’ kills five

An on-board reactor would give an engine almost unlimited range. In the case of a guided cruise missile, it could circle the world before receiving orders to attack from out of the blue.

But they’re not easy to control.

They operate at extremely high temperatures. They use explosive fuels, such as liquid hydrogen. And any accident could have devastating, long-lasting effects.

 

August 12, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Reference, Russia, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Russia says small nuclear reactor blew up in deadly accident

August 12, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | 1 Comment

Putin’s silence on mysterious radiation accident

Russia nuclear leak: Mysterious footage of hazmat officials escalates radiation panic https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1164125/Russia-nuclear-leak-radiation-Putin-iodine-hazmat

CHILLING footage from Russia has intensified fears of a nuclear radiation accident after ambulances were spotted lined with protective chemical sheets and hospitals workers were seen wearing hazmat suits.

By OLI SMITH, Sun, Aug 11, 2019  Russian President Vladimir Putin has remained silent, amid growing speculation that a nuclear missile accident has caused a dangerous radiation leak at a naval base. The Kremlin have confirmed that a “rocket engine explosion” at the Archangelsk base in northern Russia killed five people and injured three. Last night, Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rostam admitted that they had been involved in the aftermath of the incident, raising concern of a radiation leak.

Rostam added that the explosion took place during the testing of an “isotope power source”.

The official said five of its employees had died as a result of the accident and three more were being treated for burns.

However, the extent of the incident and threat of radiation  has not been disclosed, amid growing global concern.

The Archangelsk naval base has been placed under emergency lockdown for a month, with the nearby White Sea also closed to commercial shipping.

A sudden radiation spike detected in the region following the explosion prompted the initial speculation that the incident was related to a nuclear missile test.

The radiation level was recorded as 20 times higher than the normal level in the nearby city of Severodvinsk.

This has been reinforced by chilling footage filmed in the aftermath of the incident.

One video showed hospital workers wearing hazmat suits while they loaded the injured into an ambulance. Another terrifying video revealed a security escort of ambulances transporting the injured to Moscow.

In this footage, one of the ambulance is clearly coated in a chemical protection film.

A defence ministry source said that the worker’s clothes had been burned as soon as they were hospitalised with suspected radiation. Experts have linked the incident to the testing of the new nuclear-powered cruise missile Burevestnik mentioned during a speech by Vladimir Putin last year.

Local people have reportedly been urged to take precautions against radiation, with children from local kindergartens taken indoors after the blast.

There has also been a rush to buy iodine in Russia’s far north.

Russian expert Dr Mark Galeotti said the incident was “clearly a bigger issue than the Russians are letting on”.

He told the BBC: “Despite what the Kremlin have said, there must have been some sort of radiation leak – and they want people to not just stay out of harm’s way, but also don’t want people coming to the site with Geiger Counters.”

August 12, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Five people were killed following Russian rocket explosion

Russia explosion: Five confirmed dead in rocket blast,  BBC 10 Aug 19, Five people were killed and three injured following a rocket explosion on a naval test range in Russia on Thursday, state nuclear company Rosatom confirmed.

Rostacom said the accident occurred during tests on a liquid propellant rocket engine.

The three injured staff members suffered serious burns in the accident.

Authorities had previously said that two people died and six were injured in the blast at the site in Nyonoksa.

The company told Russian media that its engineering and technical team had been working on the “isotope power source” for the propulsion system.

The Nyonoksa site carries out tests for virtually every missile system used by the Russian navy, including sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-aircraft missiles.

Authorities in Severodvink, 47km (29 miles) east of Nyonska said that radiation levels shortly after the blast were higher than normal for about 40 minutes but returned to normal……..

Ammunition dump blaze

It is the second accident involving Russia’s military this week.

On Monday, one person was killed and eight others were injured in a blaze at an ammunition dump in Siberia.

Flying munitions damaged a school and a kindergarten in the area. More than 9,500 people were evacuated.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49301438

August 10, 2019 Posted by | incidents, Russia | Leave a comment

Nuclear fuel carrier “Serebryanka” is still at anchor near Russian military test site

Nuclear fuel carrier “Serebryanka” remains inside closed-off waters near missile explosion site

Authorities confirm mysterious brief radiation spike a few hours after the missile engine blast, but the source of release is still unknown. Greenpeace Russia demands greater transparency.  Barents Observer, By Thomas Nilsen, 9 Aug 19,

It is still a mystery what prompt the jump in radiation and why the nuclear fuel carrier “Serebryanka” is still at anchor in the closed-off waters a few nautical miles outside Nenoksa military test site in the White Sea.

It was Thursday at 9 am a missile engine exploded at the naval test range west of Severodvinsk.

Radiation levels were several times higher than background for about half an hour around noon on Thursday, according official data from a paper published by the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Science. The data is based on the public automated monitoring system in Severodvinsk with eight sensors in town and at the Zvezdockha shipyard.

While normal background in the town with a population of 190,000 is around 0.11 µSv/h (microsivert per hour), the levels measured at the monitor on the Lomonosov Street near Lake Teatralnoye peaked at 2 µSv/h, nearly 20 times higher gamma radiation than normal. That, though, is still way within permissible levels for population exposure.

Radiation increase peaked between 11.50 and 12.30 local time and was back at normal levels at all location by 14.00, head of the Civil Protection Department of the administration in Severodvinsk, Valentin Megomedov, told regional news agency in Arkhangelsk 29.ru on Thursday.

Interesting, the information about the increased radiation, first published on Thursday at 14.23, was removed from the city authorities’ portal Friday afternoon and is now just a dead-link. One user at a blog forum saved a copy of the original message, regional news-site 7×7 journal reports.

Russia’s Defense Ministry was shortly after the explosion informing media that no “dangerous substances” were released to the atmosphere and that the radiation level is “normal.”

Nenoksa is about 25 kilometers northwest from Severodvinsk (about 45 km by road). The military testing area is closed for outsiders. A few mobile video- and photos, however, have appeared on social media.

Scary photos

Some photos published by Mash internet news-channel show emergency services personnel in radiation protection suits coming out of a helicopter, checking the surroundings with what appears to be a Geiger counter, before a injured person is transferred to a waiting ambulance.

Two people died in the explosion, while seven were injured and brought to hospitals in Severodvinsk and Arkhangelsk, according to official sources, quoted by TASS news agency.

Sent to Moscow hospital

A unconfirmed Telegram message says six of the injured are diagnosed with radiation exposure and were transferred with two planes to the Burnasyan Federal Medical Biophysical Cente in Moscow.

A tweet posted Friday shows a film of the victims being transported in ambulances. The text reads: “The drivers of the ambulances are dressed in chemical protection suits and the cars are wrapped in film… The victims of the explosion test in Severodvinsk were brought to Moscow. … Well you understand.”

Greenpeace wants openess

“2 µSv/h in Severodvinsk might mean that the levels at the location of the incident, which is tens of kilometers from Severodvinsk, were even higher, and this increase might mean that beta- and alpha radionuclides were released into the atmosphere,” says Senior Nuclear Campaigner with Greenpeace Russia, Rashid Alimov to the Barents Observer.

He now calls for transparent information from authorities.

“Information on radionuclides present in the air, fall-out, in samples of soil and research into external and internal doses in the settlements closer to the place of discharge should be made public,” Alimov says.

Greenpeace has appealed to Rosportrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer watchdog, to establish how high the radiation has risen and whether it pose a health risk to people.

High demand for iodine

In Arkhangelsk, more than 60 kilometers east of the explosion site, pharmacies reported about extra high demand for iodine on Thursday, 29.ru reports. Journalists from the agency visited 15 pharmacies and noted great demand for iodine, some even sold out, apparently due to the news about the explosion.

No radiation measured in Norway

In Norway, the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA) says in a press release Friday evening that the agency has reasons to believe the incident in Arkhangelsk [region] caused releases of radiactivity. DSA first said it had not got any official information about releases from Russia.

None of the Scandinavian measurement stations for radioactivity have seen anything unnormal, the agency says, but underlines that the monitoring will be intensified.

The village of Nenoksa is only one kilometer from the boundaries to the naval test site and some three kilometers from the shoreline of the closed area. A video from the time of the accident might indicate that the explosion happened near the shore and some media also reported that the explosion happened on a missile test from or onboard a barge close to the shore.

Secrecy

Many details of the accident at the naval test range remain unclear. The Defense Ministry says the cause of the accident was an explosion while testing a liquid propulsion system, and the explosion triggered a fire.

Nenoksa is well known for testing naval ballistic missile engines and cruise missiles of various types. There are, however, no logic reasons for any such missiles to have a source of radioactivity, unless it is an industrial source of radioactive Cobalt or Cesium in use for one or anther research reason during the testing.

If so, traces of the isotope(s) should be easy to discover.

After the fatal explosion, port authorities in Arkhangelsk informed all civilian vessels on the Dvina River basin and in the White Sea that the waters north of Nenoksa is closed-off to shipping for the coming month.

“Serebryanka“

One ship, though, stayed at anchor inside the close area for more than 30 hours until it slowly started to move Friday afternoon: the special radiological service vessel “Serebryanka”

Serebryanka” has been at anchor a few nautical miles north of Nenoksa since before the explosion Thursday morning.

The ship belongs to Rosatomflot and is normally at port at the base for nuclear-powered icebreakers in Murmansk. In the 1980s and very early 90s, “Serebryanka” was used to transport liquid radioactive waste from the Atomflot facility in Murmansk to dedicated dumping areas in the Barents Sea.

In recent years, the ship has transported liquid radioactive waste from Atomflot to a treatment facility in Severodvinsk, as well as operated between Nerpa and Skhval naval yards on the Kola Peninsula and Atomflot in Murmansk. The ship has also transported containers with spent nuclear fuel from the closed-down naval base of Gremikha.

More interesting, the “Serebryanka” was sailing the waters west of Novaya Zemlya at the time after it is believed that Russia carried out a flight test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile (NATO name SSC-X-9 Skyfall) in November 2017.

Barents Sea

As reported by CNBC, the missile crashed and was lost at sea shortly after launch from the temporary facilities at Pankovo south of the Matochin Shar at Novaya Zemlya. According to The Diplomat, “Serebryanka” was likely taking part in the recovery operation last summer.

The flight path starts at Pankovo, continues over shore for the first few seconds, then turn north over the waters at the inlet of the Matotchkin Shar dividing the northern and southern islands of Novaya Zemlya, before continuing towards the Sukhoy Nos, which is believed to be the impact area for the test, the Barents Observer reported at the time.

The last test shooting of the Burevestnik missile at Pankovo took place in February 2018 and the facility was dismantled and shiped away during last summer.

One problem, it appeared, was the presence of American WC-135 special-purpose aircraft frequently flying the easter Barents Sea close to Russian airspace. The WC-135’s mission is to collect samples from the atmosphere for the purpose of detecting and identifying radionuclides.

The White Sea area on the other hand, is Russian airspace. Since October 2018, satellite images show that a new construction has been erected at the Nenoksa test site, which resemble the facilities removed from Pankovo on Novaya Zemlya.

“Serebryanka”, which left port in Murmansk towards the White Sea on August 4th, could have been in the area to either transport the missile or to pick it up from the sea after testing.

The Burevestnik missile is equipped with a small nuclear reactor.

If the missile fuel that exploded at Nenoksa site happened while testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile which uses a propellant engine in the start, radioactivity could have been released from possible damages of the small reactor.

The existence of the nuclear-powered cruise missile was first made public by President Vladimir Putin in his annual speech last year, as reported by the Barents Observer.

The President sent a clear message to the United States. Russia has developed new missiles and an underwater torpedo that would be immune to ballistic missiles shields and other means to stop a nuclear attack.

“Nobody has anything like this,” Putin said simultaneously as a video film of the test shooting from Novaya Zemlya as well as an animation was displayed on big screens. One of the screened weapons Putin presented was the new nuclear-powered cruise missile.

………https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/08/severodvinsk-authorities-confirm-mysterious-brief-radiation-spike-after-missile

 

August 10, 2019 Posted by | Russia, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

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