Recently, presenter on Russian television, Dmitry Kiselyov, claimed that Russia could wipe out Britain with a nuclear tsunami if it continued to support Ukraine. The weapon used is the Poseidon underwater nuclear drone.
On Russia's popular Channel One television, he claimed that Poseidon's shot could sink Britain into radioactive seawater. Is that right?
As quoted by us from Euro News, the Poseidon is an underwater drone which is basically a nuclear-powered autonomous torpedo and has a nuclear warhead. The project leaked in 2015.
The aim is to destroy the coastal area and cause massive damage to the target territory with radioactive contamination so that it cannot be used for military or economic activities.
In 2018, leaks from the Pentagon confirmed that Russia was developing a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed intercontinental autonomous toperdo.
The Poseidon nuclear drone is about 20 meters long, can dive up to a thousand meters and a range of at least 10,000 kilometers, according to Sidrath Kaushal, an analyst with the British defense agency.
Its true ability is still a mystery, but if it is really underwater and can move very fast, it will be difficult to detect. "This is a torpedo with a very long range, can speed and have a nuclear," said David Hambling, a technology journalist.
The Poseidon is also called a drone because it can navigate autonomously or may be controlled remotely. Possibly the material is titanium so it can withstand extreme depths.
The estimated top speed of this nuclear drone is over 90 kilometers per hour, about twice as fast as a conventional submarine and much harder to track.
"It's more difficult to anticipate because even if missile defenses exist, very few countries are prepared to fight nuclear torpedoes, let alone very fast ones," Kaushal said.
It is estimated that the Poseidon nuclear warhead could reach 2 megatons. That is more than 100 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb launched in World War II.
But is it true that Poseidon can destroy England as the presenter claims that a 500-meter-high tsunami will occur? Experts doubt it.
"If it was aimed at a harbor and detonated very close to the coast, it might indeed destroy a city. But it probably didn't do much more than that and certainly didn't cost more than a massive nuclear damage," Hambling said.
The impact may be that quite a lot of areas are uninhabitable due to the harmful effects of radioactivity. However, Russia's bluff is considered not to be realized because it will be equally lost if a nuclear war occurs.
