Podcast: “More nuclear-powered weapons testing coming up in the Arctic”

In the studio is Thomas Nilsen, Editor of the Barents Observer and expert on nuclear weapons in the Arctic. In the podcast, Thomas explains how Russia is making big efforts on the development of nuclear-powered weapons, including the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Poseidon underwater drone. He also outlines Russia’s ongoing activities at the nuclear test sites in Novaya Zemlya and the continued construction of nuclear submarines.

Nilsen says that Ukraine’s recent Operation Spider Web was a game-changing attack which ultimately could make Russia move parts of its nuclear weapons from the Air Force to the Navy.

He argues that the nuclear weapon powers should return to the table to negotiate arms reduction and arms control treaties. Nevertheless, he believes that there is no immanent danger of Russia actually using nuclear weapons. It is more about the Kremlin trying to scare the world, he says.

“The fear of nuclear weapons is a weapon in itself.”

Over several years, you have written stories about the Kola Peninsula and the situation in the region. And you have used satellite maps that shows how Russia is developing its nuclear arsenals in the north. How is Russia developing nuclear weapons in the region?

Well, what we see on satellite images is that there has been a quite extensive rebuilding of the facilities at the northern test site at Novaya Zemlya over the last two, maybe three year period.

The northern test site is the active one. It’s where Russia conducted underground nuclear testings up to 1990. But we don’t know exactly what is happening on the ground. We see the buildings. This could be also a renewing of the quite run-down Soviet facilities that they had. In a kind of the same way as we have seen at other military sites in the Russian Arctic, where the Soviet buildings at Severnaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land and so on, has been abandoned and they have built new buildings. So it is an area quite close to the Matochin Strait. It’s called the Severnaya base, the northern base, where a lot of new buildings has appeared over the last few years.

Do you think there is a possibility that Russia will resume actual testing in Novaya Zemlya?

Well, the northern test site at Novaya Zemlya is the only place where Russia actually can conduct full-scale nuclear tests if they want. And they are capable of it. They do have tunnels that are made ready. So it is actually a political question. And two years ago, Vladimir Putin withdrew Russia from the comprehensive test ban treaty in the way that they un-ratified it. That is a political sign. It is maybe not as dramatic as it sounds. It doesn’t mean that Russia will make nuclear tests at Novaya Zemlya, but they are in a way showing the United States that they are ready to do so if needed. And this comprehensive test ban treaty that were signed back in 1996 was actually never ratified by the United States itself. So in many ways, Russia is now on the same level as the United States that they have not ratified it. And by that, they can conduct nuclear weapon tests at Novaya Zemlya if needed.

Russia has all the time since the breakup of the Soviet Union maintained a few tunnels and another test site. And in two of those tunnels, we know that they are conducting so-called subcritical tests, which is using a small portion of either uranium or plutonium and test it with conventional explosives. And then they simulate a nuclear test. This is done both for maintaining the safety of existing nuclear weapons, but also we can presume that it’s some kind of new development of computer technologies and the warheads capabilities and so on. This test site is maybe two, three kilometers from the Severnaya main settlement on the northern test site. But what is most interesting is that they are also maintaining a couple of other tunnels that we believe are designed for real nuclear weapon tests. And there has been activities at these tunnels over the last few years. We saw it also last spring and last summer.

If Vladimir Putin decides to escalate the situation, conducting nuclear tests could be one way of showing such political disagreements with the United States. But historically, Russia has not been the country that have pushed the trigger first. So I think it is unlikely, but we can no longer exclude it.

Novaya Zemlya is important for Russia. And we know that the weapons designers of Rosatom are in the process of developing new weapons. Tell us a bit about this.

Yes, that is also a special location at Novaya Zemlya. It’s a test site called Pankovo, where we have seen on satellite images over the last few years that they have expanded the activities up there, especially after 2020. The Pankovo test site is a place where they are launching the so-called Burevestnik missile, or by NATO, named the Skyfall. This is a cruise missile that is powered by a small nuclear reactor. It has a scramjet to push it up in the air, and when it is airborne, they start the reactor. And according to Russian weapon designers and according to Vladimir Putin himself, when he is talking or bragging about this weapon, this cruise missile, the Burevestnik, has unlimited range. And it is also possible to navigate it midair, meaning that it can potentially avoid anti-missile systems. This weapon is kind of interesting to follow because it’s not deployed yet, but they are doing tests. And with a small nuclear reactor up in the air, it also has some releases of radioactivity that goes directly out behind the cruise missile as it is flying.

Very little is known about how successful these tests are. We know that a couple of them have crashed in the Barents Sea. They have been lifted from the seabed and brought safely ashore again. But it is very interesting to follow the Pankovo nuclear test site. That is one of several cruise missile test sites where we believe parts or the entire combat of the Burevestnik missile is tested. Another place that we have seen, and we published articles on that in the Barents Observer, is the Nenoksa site on the coast to the White Sea. And we quite recently published brand new photos, satellite photos, that show that it has been really a lot of construction work at that site modernised over the last two years.

So let’s stick a little bit with this Nenoksa test site, which is located very close to Arkhangelsk in the Russian north. And you’ve written, as you said, a story about this, and it can be read by everyone on the Barents Observer. So tell us what is special about this Nenoksa testing site.

Nenoksa made big headlines worldwide back in July 2019. Or it was actually early August 2019, when during work of recovering one of the missiles that were launched from that area, the radioactive component of the missile exploded. And it led to a release of radioactivity. So isotopes were blowing towards the city of Severodvinsk, which is some 30 kilometres to the east of Nenoksa. And it was not very high levels, but it lasted for about half an hour, with several isotopes measured in the town of Severodvinsk. And we learned after a few days that five of the experts in the Rosatom Development Division of the Burevestnik missile and the reactor were killed of radioactive sicknesses in that explosion. So it is a very serious area. And the big difference here between Nenoksa and Pankovo site on the Novaya Zemlya is that Nenoksa is close to densely populated areas. Severodvinsk with more than 200,000 inhabitants, and not far away is also the city of Arkhangelsk with 300,000 people. So there is actually more than half a million people living in an area where Russia conducts testing of reactor-powered weapons that both have experienced accidents and are releasing radioactivity as they are testing it. And these new satellite images are a sign that Russia plans to resume the Burevestnik testing at Nenoksa, and that is worrying. First of all for the population of northern Russia, but also for Russia’s neighbors in the north, Finland and us in Norway.

Nuclear-powered cruise missile is indeed a scary thought, but there are also other weapons under development. And you have also written a story about the Poseidon, which is an underwater drone capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Tell us about the Poseidon, please.

The Poseidon is a weapon we know much less about than the Burevestnik, quite naturally because it’s tested and developed for underwater warfare. But it’s also one of the weapons that were bragged about by Vladimir Putin when he showed Russia’s plans for new nuclear weapon delivery systems in his annual speech to the public a few years ago.

The Poseidon in basic is also powered by a small nuclear reactor that is giving it a quite long range. We don’t know how long, but potentially this drone that is more than 20 meters long and can navigate across the Atlantic. So it’s an intercontinental underwater weapon. And the idea with the weapon is to dive deeper than normal submarines can sail, which means also that it’s much more difficult for the enemy, in this case NATO, to stop the weapon as it is launched. So it is a deterrence weapon for Russia. In case Russia is taken out in a nuclear war, they will always have this weapon to retaliate on Europe or the United States.

The weapon is carried by a submarine that is called Belgorod. It is a redesigned former Oscar-class submarine, and this submarine brings the torpedo or underwater drone, the Poseidon, out in open water from where it is launched. We don’t know where this is happening. We see that the submarine is sailing out of Severodvinsk. We can see that on social media channels and photos and videos that are published in this town. But we know it’s sailing north. If the testing takes place in the White Sea area, the areas where other weapons are tested, submarine weapons are tested, or if it takes place in the eastern part of the Barents Sea or even in the more shallow southern part of the Kara Sea. We don’t know. But we know that they are testing it, and they haven’t yet deployed the weapon. They have developed a special class of submarines that one day will carry this weapon. It’s called the Khabarovsk submarines.

They started building them back in 2014, according to Russian sources. But these submarines are not yet put on the water, and they are not even rolled out of the ship hulls at the Sevmash yard in Severodvinsk. So we don’t know how far they have come in developing the Poseidon nuclear drone, but they are working on it, and that is a concern. It’s a kind of both a concern, of course, because it’s a very terrifying weapon, but it is also a concern because it will cause releases of radioactivity to the marine environment during development and testing.

Talking about submarines, which is indeed a very important part of Russian armed forces, and they are based – many of them at least – in the Kola Peninsula, not so many kilometers away from where we are sitting here today. But Russia is spending tremendous resources now on the war in Ukraine. Does really Russia have the capacity to follow up Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to build more nuclear submarines?

This is a key question when analyzing Russia’s military structures nowadays, and the short answer is yes, they are giving priority to building new submarines and new surface warships. But to focus on the submarines, they have the new fourth-generation submarines, both of the multipurpose class, the Yasen class, and the strategic submarines, the ballistic missile submarines of the Borey-A class. And, well, they are delayed according to the original plans, but they are rolling out approximately one of each every year, one Borey-A class ballistic missile submarine and one Yasen class submarines. And these are tremendously expensive weapons. They are high-tech technology, and they are kind of the best submarines that Soviet Union and Russia have ever built. They are sailing quietly, and they are armed with what we could call post-Soviet developed cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. The Borey class with the Bulava missiles, and the Yasen class with the Kalibr missile, the Tsirkon missile, and probably the Tsirkon missile is the one we should keep a special eye on because this is a missile that in case it is needed can be armed with a nuclear warhead. And it is also a missile that has a very long range. And the worrying part here is that this missile, when it has been tested, it has been launched from sea, flying over land and hitting targets in the sea. So the Yasen class nuclear-powered submarines actually have weapons that can be launched from Russia’s home waters in the Barents Sea and flying over northern Scandinavia and hitting targets in the North Atlantic, mainly the northern part of the Norwegian Sea. And that is Russia’s planning for expanding a kind of the buffer zone in case they need to protect the ballistic missile submarines. And for now, there are three Yasen class submarines based with the Northern Fleet, all of them in Zapadnaya Litsa, which is 65 kilometers from the border with Norway on the coast to the Barents Sea. And Russia has two Borei-A class submarines with the Northern Fleet based in Gadzhievo. And those are, of course, the ones that really are armed with nuclear warheads, four to six warheads on each of the 16 missiles in each of those submarines.

Can we expect testing of these weapons this summer, this fall? It’s quite expensive as well to do testing, isn’t it?

Testing is expensive, but it is highly needed. And Russia, like most other navies, before commissioning a warship, either it’s a submarine or a surface warship, they have to prove that the weapon systems on board actually work. And both for the latest Borei-A class submarine, the K555 Knyaz-Pozharsky, and for the latest Yasen class submarine, the Arkhangelsk, they need to conduct more testing of the weapons. The Borei-A class, we believed it was out over the last year and trying to test the Bulava, but we haven’t seen any actual reports of successful testings. And before transferring this vessel from the naval yard in Sevmash, Severodvinsk, to the Northern Fleet where it’s going to be based, they need to do a test. And this test, I’m pretty sure, will come during summer or autumn 2025. For the Yasen class submarine, Putin has been bragging about the options of launching a Tsirkon missile, that this submarine is specially designed to carry the Tsirkon missile. And when the chief, the dictator himself, says that it works, well, then the Navy and the weapon designers have to prove that it actually does. So we will see also tests of the Tsirkon missile in the near future in our northern maritime areas, either that is the White Sea or the Barents Sea.

So we see that Russia is building new submarines, building more submarines able to carry nuclear weapons. Does that mean that we will see more also nuclear weapons deployed in the Russian Navy and also in the Russian North?

We don’t know. There are different scenarios here. First of all, it is important to underline that although there hasn’t been any inspections by the United States to see if Russia fulfills the limits, the maximum limits that are set in the new START treaty on the amount of nuclear weapons on ballistic missile submarines, all intelligence reports that we see in Europe and in the United States tells that Russia is not basing more nuclear weapons than those 1,750 warheads that are in the triad, that’s not only submarines, it’s also the Air Force and on silo-based ballistic missiles. So we don’t think that Russia has more weapons than the limits in the START agreement. But on the other side, and this is the big question we don’t have insight to, that is how many tactical nuclear weapons are on storage at the naval bases in the Russian North and how many tactical nuclear weapons are potentially already on board the multipurpose submarines of the Yasen class. We know that they can carry it, but we don’t know actually if they are armed when they are on board or if they at all are placed on board the ships or if they are just at the naval bases in storages ready to be placed on board. And this is one of the big problems with the new START treaty is that it does not cover tactical nuclear weapon, it only focuses on the ballistic missile submarines and the strategic nuclear weapons.

The START treaty obviously is important both for Russia and for the United States. It expires, as you said, next year. But what about other countries? What is their role in this picture?

Nuclear weapons are making headlines worldwide nowadays. We were a bit scared when we saw the news about India and Pakistan and the near war situation up in Kashmir that could have triggered a war between two nuclear weapon states. Luckily, it did not. But one of the main points for the United States when they are now talking about the new START treaty and an option to prolong it or to renew it or to replace it with another treaty on strategic nuclear weapons.

And here the United States has a very good point, is that this is a bilateral treaty between Russia and the United States. And the United States says that they need to include China in this treaty as well. And up till quite recently, China was a nuclear weapon power state, but it did not have that many warheads, maybe only two, three hundred warheads, which is comparable with what the United Kingdom and France have. It’s a scary many, but it’s not on the same level as Russia and the United States. But in recent years, Beijing has expanded its nuclear arsenal and is building new silos and also the number of nuclear warheads is increasing. So China is a country to take a closer look at. And if there should be a new arms treaty regulating the number of warheads in each country, it is a very good idea to also include China into this treaty. But so far that has not happened.

I think the main focus now will be to maybe expand the time horizon for the existing START treaty, maybe with one year, maybe with two years, until a new, more global posture on arms reduction treaties can be signed. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons are also in discussions in Europe. It was up and at debate on the NATO summit in Hague last week. And the United Kingdom has announced that they will buy F-35 fighter jets that are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons. We know that France is very relying on their ballistic missile submarines and so on. So I think really it is important to bring back the nuclear weapon powers to the table, just like it was in the end of the Cold War, you know, when Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan met in 1986 in Reykjavik and so on. Because the worst case scenario now is that in February next year, we don’t have one single arms reduction treaty or arms control treaty that limits the number of nuclear weapons in the world, except, of course, the non-proliferation agreement. But that one is also challenged by countries like Iran, North Korea, etc.

Talking about Russia, it’s not getting easier to follow developments in the country. How do we actually manage to keep an eye on what Russia is doing with its weapons, with its nuclear weapons, with the submarines? How can we get a glimpse at least of what’s going on?

I think based on the experiences we in the Barents Observer and we as journalists have, I think it is very important to not only focus on what Russia says, but to keep a very close eye on what Russia does. And in the north, we saw it in February 2022, when the full scale invasion of Ukraine happened. It was very quiet on the strategical nuclear forces in the Russian north. They did not deploy more ballistic missile submarines to the sea and also at the storage that they have five, six of in the Kola Peninsula area or Murmansk region. It was also very, very quiet. And this is important because we are today facing a political situation in the Kremlin where the Kremlin itself is not loudly talking about its nuclear weapon arsenal. But there are proxy players like Dmitry Medvedev, the Security Council, and not least to talk about the propaganda people in different Russian TV channels that are loudly talking about using nuclear weapons. Either it is tactical nuclear weapons against some Ukrainian cities or maybe if the situation escalates that they want to use it against Europe. But this is, of course, not in Russia’s interest at all because they know that they should not trigger the first use of nuclear weapons. So it’s rhetorics. Meanwhile, we in the media will focus on what we see actually is happening. And on that side, it is nothing deeply to worry about currently.

We have talked about a lot already, but are there any other things with regard to Russia’s nuclear capabilities in the north that we should keep an eye on?

Absolutely, absolutely. And the Ukrainian spectacular attack against the Olenya Air Base on the Kola Peninsula on June 1st, and not only the Olenya Air Base, but several air bases in Russia. Here in the north it is important also to remember that the Olenya is not only an air base that is home to strategic bombers flying and launching cruise missiles against Ukraine. It is also a very important air base for Russia’s nuclear deterrence. It’s the northernmost air base they have with strategical bombers that can carry nuclear weapons in case of an escalating conflict between east and west. And this is actually first time in the world history that it has been such a massive attack and destroying strategical bombers on an air base that is important for the nuclear deterrence of the United States and Russia. So I think we can expect that there will be changes in regards to how many nuclear weapons Russia have available for the air force, the strategic bombers, and maybe that it will be an increased number of nuclear weapons on the Navy instead. That means in the north, submarines. But this remains to be seen. But absolutely, the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s air forces and the bases is changing the game in many ways. One of Russia’s largest storages, central storages for nuclear weapons warheads are in the mountains not far from the Olenya Air Base. And those are the weapons that Russia might deploy if they want to escalate the situation and bring it out to the naval bases and maybe even put it on submarines that are sailing the Barents Sea. So keeping an eye on what happens in the Russian north is key to understanding Russia’s nuclear weapon thinking and doing.

These are lots of scary stuff. Do people in Europe, in the Nordic region have reason to be afraid?

I don’t think so. I think that we should keep calm. I think that the biggest threat by nuclear weapons as we see it right now is actually the scaring of people with it. Russia always having people that are making statements that, oh, if you cross the red line now, we will trigger nuclear weapons and so on. And the fear of nuclear weapons is a weapon in itself. But the use of nuclear weapon, I think, is very unrealistic and it’s suicide for any nation that tries to use it.

Located in Kirkenes, Norway, just a few kilometres from the borders to Russia and Finland, the Barents Observer is dedicated to cross-border journalism in Scandinavia, Russia and the wider Arctic.

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