Copyright independent
The Russian president said the test of the weapon had been a “great success”, in a move that came days after Donald Trump described Moscow’s test of a nuclear missile as a mistake. There are few confirmed details about the Poseidon in the public domain but experts say it is capable of triggering radioactive ocean swells to render coastal cities uninhabitable, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. "For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch the nuclear power unit on which this device passed a certain amount of time," Putin said. "There is nothing like this." Speaking at a meeting with soldiers wounded in Ukraine, Putin said the Poseidon drone was tested while running on nuclear power for the first time. He said Poseidon is unmatched in speed and depth and “there is no way to intercept it.” He said the nuclear reactor that powers Poseidon is “100 times smaller” than those on submarines, and the power of its nuclear warhead is “significantly higher than that of our prospective Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile”. Putin last week held a nuclear launch drill and on Sunday announced that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield. It comes as US President Donald Trump has ordered the US military to resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in 33 years. Trump painted the decision as a logical response to other countries' own testing, without referring to any other nation by name. It follows a rapid expansion by China of its nuclear stockpile in recent years. The Arms Control Association says the United States has a stockpile of 5,225 nuclear warheads and Russia has 5,580. As Trump has toughened both his rhetoric and his stance on Russia, Putin has publicly flexed his nuclear muscles with the test of a new Burevestnik cruise missile on 21 October and nuclear launch drills on 22 October. A US nuclear weapons test would be seen in Russia and China as a deliberate assertion of US strategic power. Putin has repeatedly said that Russia will begin its own testing if the United States does so.
