By the beginning of 2024, the Kremlin announced today, it intends to base submarines equipped with “super torpedoes” in the Pacific Ocean.
Four years after Putin unveiled the new class of strategic nuclear weapon, Moscow announced in January that it had created the first batch of Poseidon torpedoes.
Today, Ukraine‘s top security official criticized Russia’s plans to post tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, stating that by doing so, Russia was holding its ally hostage to a nuclear war.
There are few confirmed details about the Poseidon, but it is essentially a cross between a torpedo and a drone that can be launched from a nuclear submarine.
At the weekend Moscow said it was making the move in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine.
Mr Putin announced the plan on Saturday, saying it was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.
Putin said that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the US.
He said: ‘We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the Ulaunch platforms and training their crews,’ he said.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said that Mr Putin’s announcement was ‘a step towards internal destabilisation’ of Belarus.
He said the move maximised ‘the level of negative perception and public rejection’ of Russia and Mr Putin in Belarusian society.
The Kremlin, Mr Danilov added, ‘took Belarus as a nuclear hostage’.
Mr Putin argued on Saturday that Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko had long asked to have nuclear weapons in his country again to counter Nato.
Both Mr Lukashenko’s support of the war and Mr Putin’s plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus have been denounced by the Belarusian opposition.
The US said it would ‘monitor the implications’ of Mr Putin’s announcement.
So far, Washington had not seen ‘any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon’, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
The torpedoes are being developed for deployment on the Belgorod and Khabarovsk nuclear submarines, TASS reported.
Russia Pacific Fleet’s ballistic nuclear missile submarine base is located on the south-eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East.
The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the Kamchatka Peninsula’s eastern and western coastlines.
The source allegedly told TASS that a new division is being formed as part of the Submarine Forces of the Pacific Fleet, which will include not only Belgorod and Khabarovsk but also other submarines.
The new special-purpose submarines will participate in solving the tasks ‘of strategic deterrence’, the source reportedly said.