Sparse details, but apparently there has been an incident with nuclear ordnance in Nyonoska, Russia, spiking some meters, and causing some radiation casualties requiring the distribution of iodine. Five have now been reported killed even as the Russian official line was the explosion of a non-nuclear liquid rocket motor.
The 9M730 Burevestnik (Russian: Буревестник; "Petrel", NATO reporting name: SSC-X-9 Skyfall) is a Russian nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile with virtually unlimited range. The Burevestnik is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018.
Suspicions are growing today that Russia has suffered another nuclear accident after ambulances covered in protective film were seen transporting six people with serious radiation poisoning in a mystery explosion at a military base.
Alarming footage also shows men in protective clothing loading casualties into the vehicles in the wake of a blast at the Nyonoksa weapons testing site in the sub-Arctic Arkhangelsk region yesterday.
Earlier the clothes of the victims and the medics who first treated them were destroyed, it was reported, before causalities were transferred for treatment at the Burnasyan Federal Medical Biophysical Centre in Moscow.
Moscow has thrown a veil of secrecy over the explosion, which killed two and left six injured on Thursday.
Radiation levels are said to have temporarily soared 20 times above the normal level in Severodvinsk, a city 18 miles away, sparking 'panic' and 'hysteria' and a rush to buy iodine from pharmacies.
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Serebryanka is a tanker used for liquid waste which can hold 1,000 cubic meters of material
The presence of the nuclear fuel carrier ship Serebryanka in the area at the time of the accident also points to Burevestnik. This ship was reportedly part of a flotilla that Russia sent into the Arctic to reportedly recover one or more crashed Burevestniks last year. The vessel, which is configured to safely transport nuclear fuel rods and similar cargo, would be well suited to carrying nuclear-powered cruise missiles. This ship remains inside a portion of the Dvina Bay in the White Sea that the Russian government closed off to all public and commercial activity after the incident.
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Of course, there remains a possibility that this incident was unrelated to Burevestnik, but this weapon is the only one that Russia has announced publicly that it is working on that involves a nuclear power source. Whatever the case, it remains worrisome that the Kremlin would be testing any such propulsion system in such relatively close proximity to population centers. Reported testing of the Burevestnik in Novaya Zemlya had made good sense.
Questions remain about how much radiation may have leaked out as a result of the accident. City officials in Severodvinsk, to the east of Nyonoksa, initially reported that there had been a brief spike in radiation based on readings of up to 20 millisieverts per hour from two sensors that are part of an automated civil defense system. Typical background radiation for the area is 0.11 millisieverts per hour. There are reports that sales of iodine, which can help prevent radiation absorption in the body, surged after the incident, though there does not to be any confirmation that officials had actually ordered residents to take it.
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