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Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted this week that Russia has tested a nuclear-powered super torpedo, the Poseidon, that was unstoppable and more powerful than a nuclear missile.

It was the second announcement in a week of Russian trials involving nuclear-capable weapons systems.

Days earlier, Russia announced the test of a new nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik or Skyfall, that seemed in particular to irritate United States President Donald Trump.

In the wake of the tests, he directed the Pentagon to begin testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with Russia and China.

The moves highlighted the growing action-reaction cycle between the two nations’ nuclear policies as they are increasingly freed from the limits of traditional arms control agreements.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later expressed surprise at Trump’s remarks, emphasising that a global moratorium on nuclear testing remains in effect.

“And if the Burevestnik test is somehow being referred to, it’s not a nuclear test in any way. All countries are developing their defence systems, but this isn’t a nuclear test.”

Both Burevestnik and Poseidon are part of Russia’s “super weapons” line-up unveiled by Putin in 2018 to much state media fanfare and seen as a clear deterrent to the West.

During Putin’s presentation back then, one of the mock-up videos showed a missile flight path that famously depicted Florida as its destination.

Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev described these new “super weapons” as Russia’s response to Western efforts to dominate the world militarily, after the West had abandoned the various Cold War-era arms control agreements.

“In recent years, they have acted arrogantly and self-confidently, under the illusion that they would not encounter any resistance. And here is Russia’s persuasive response, named ‘Oreshnik,’ ‘Burevestnik’ and ‘Poseidon,’” Kosachev said. Oreshnik is a medium-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

The Poseidon, in particular, is being presented by Russia as a game-changing country-killer that will devastate coasts of Russia’s opponents.

“There is nothing like it, and there won’t be anytime soon. There are no interception methods,” Putin said at a military hospital where he announced the successful test.

The Poseidon is designed for stealthy underwater travel on its way to destroy critical coastal infrastructure, such as naval stations and ports.

At 20m-long, it’s too large for Russia’s largest submarines and requires its own purpose-built submarine to launch it.

In November 2020, Christopher Ford, then US assistant secretary of state for international security and non-proliferation, said Poseidon was being designed to “inundate US coastal cities with radioactive tsunamis”. But there is scepticism over whether the power of such explosions would be enough to generate a tsunami.

“It’s worth recalling that the Soviet Union, in fact, studied the idea of using tsunami-like waves to destroy coastal facilities. Several times. And each study concluded that it won’t work. One study called the idea ‘absurd,’” said Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian nuclear forces.

Symbolic impact

The vehicle also defies traditional classifications. The Poseidon is intended to carry a nuclear warhead and is powered by a nuclear reactor that can traverse the ocean with an effectively limitless range, making it a “Franken-weapon” that falls somewhere between a torpedo and an unmanned underwater vessel, said Michael Petersen, the principal research scientist at the Russia military studies programme at the Centre for Naval Analyses, a non-profit research and analysis organisation.

There are a few unknowns about the Poseidon, including whether the weapon is preloaded with targeting data and whether it uses satellite communications for guidance, Petersen said.

It may also use a wire on the water’s surface to receive such information once a target is selected, he said.

While the public discussion of the Poseidon, including its ability to create a “tsunami,” has a dramatic flourish, its military uses are rather limited.

It’s considered a “second-strike” capability, which describes the weapons meant to pose a threat after a nuclear war has already started.

Those include submarines, which can carry 16 ballistic missiles with 6 to 10 warheads apiece, Petersen said, making a single sub more destructive than numerous Poseidons.

“Rather than serve a war-fighting function, it’s designed to force an adversary to back down in the face of threats to use it,” Petersen said.

“Of course, Russia may elect to use it, but by that point, global strategic warfare is either already ongoing or the only option remaining.”

Russian media reports placed Poseidon’s speed at between 60 and 100 knots (112 and 178km/h). Petersen said it would probably travel much more slowly to remain stealthy and keep communication links open.

Soviet research project

According to Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, Poseidon belongs to a long Soviet tradition of experimenting with high-yield undersea delivery systems that examined how ocean depth, pressure and shock-wave propagation could be used to shape or amplify nuclear effects. The first large-scale development dated back to the early 1950s.

“Soviet research institutes modelled such detonations in Lake Ladoga and later on Novaya Zemlya.

“The studies showed that continental shelves absorb most of the energy - massive waves dissipate rapidly, making large-scale coastal destruction physically unrealistic,” she said on X.

“We know little about Poseidon beyond the leaked presentation aired on Russian television. Yet, given previous Soviet interest, Poseidon represents less a technical revolution than a persistence of concept.”

Pro-Kremlin commentators have been explicit in the symbolism behind Poseidon’s theoretical capabilities, saying that a weapon that can potentially flood coastal cities would be most effective against a country like the US and the United Kingdom.

“Since the Anglo-Saxon civilisation is located along the shores of seas and oceans, it is most vulnerable to Poseidon,” pro-Kremlin political commentator Sergei Markov said.

“And one could say that Poseidon is an anti-Anglo-Saxon nuclear torpedo.”