Russian TV ‘accidentally’ leaks secret nuclear weapons plans

Two Russian state-run TV stations aired an image of plans for a long-range nuclear torpedo while showing a meeting between president Vladimir Putin and military generals in Sochi. A footnote on the drawings spotted by the website described a detonation that would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” leaving the enemy’s soil in poor condition, unfit for “military, economic and business” for a long time.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday confirmed that the leak took place, and said state television reporters would be carefully monitored at future meetings to prevent this from happening again.

According to the Russian state news agency, TASS, Putin today said Russia would in time develop its own anti-ballistic missile defense systems, but “at this first stage … we will work on strike systems able to overcome any missile defense system”. If the bombs were ever detonated, they would cause a devastating tsunami reaching far inland. Luckily, the document says the weapon – designed by the Rubin design bureau, which designed every Russian submarine in current service – won’t be ready until 2020.

Putin went on to say that the USA and other NATO powers are building a few kind of massive missile defense system, which apparently violates a few kind of agreement or treaty.

It’s getting scarier with weapons development as new materials are being introduced making the systems more horrifying than ever.

Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst, summed up Russia’s weapons update thus: “The plan is to deliver a 100-megaton nuclear bomb to the US shores”.

It details a nuclear submarine launched weapon that if primed with a nuclear warhead could cause wide spread destruction and radioactive contamination of key enemy coastal areas. It said the drone would reportedly have a maximum range of 5,400 nautical miles (10,000 kilometers) while traveling at a depth of 1,000 meters. “Our task is to translate into reality all identified plans”, Putin said.

Just before the torpedo diagram came into view in the state TV report, Mr Putin could be heard telling the generals that the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies were forging ahead with a global anti-missile defence system “unfortunately ignoring our concerns and our offers of co-operation”. While in the past most nations have innovated on missile defence systems and early warning devices for missiles and aircraft, it is much harder to detect, track and neutralize targets underwater. A few observers, however, saw it as a deliberate leak.