Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia had successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-propelled torpedo-drone – the Kremlin’s second announcement this week of a weapon that uses a radioactive engine. US and Russian officials have both described Poseidon as a new category of retaliatory weapon, with a nuclear warhead capable of triggering a radioactive tsunami to render coastal cities uninhabitable. Arms control experts say the weapon breaks most of the traditional nuclear deterrence and classification rules. It is launched from a submarine like a torpedo, but is claimed to be able to loiter as an underwater drone before attacking with its nuclear warhead.
Putin told soldiers wounded in the Ukraine war that the Poseidon test had taken place on Tuesday. “For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch the nuclear power unit on which this device passed a certain amount of time,” Putin said. “This is a huge success,” Putin said, claiming that the power of the Poseidon exceeded Russia’s Sarmat intercontinental missile. Putin on Sunday announced the hours-long flight of a Burevestnik missile that has been condemned as a “flying Chronobyl”: its nuclear motor potentially spews out hazardous radiation as it passes overhead.
Ukrainian forces are struggling to fend off intensifying Russian advances on the eastern city of Pokrovsk, the military and open-source analysts said on Wednesday. Ukraine’s military, though, rejected claims by Vladimir Putin that Ukrainian forces were surrounded in Pokrovsk and in Kupiansk. It described Kupiansk’s encirclement as “fantasies” and said Pokrovsk had not been blockaded, with supply lines intact. Ukraine’s 7th Corps did say Russian forces had deployed about 11,000 troops in an attempt to encircle the greater Pokrovsk area.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said in his nightly video address that along the 1,250km (775 mile) frontline the situation around Pokrovsk was “the most difficult … with the most intensive combat activity, with a strong concentration of Russian forces”. The situation around Kupiansk “remains difficult, but our forces have more control in recent days. We are continuing to defend our positions.”
Ukrainian open-source analyst project DeepState said Russia had been able to break a military logistics route to Pokrovsk’s neighbouring city of Myrnohrad using infantry ambushes and drone attacks. “The situation in Pokrovsk is on the verge of critical and continues to deteriorate to the point that fixing everything may be too late,” the group said. DeepState said Russian forces were trying to infiltrate Pokrovsk and a nearby village in small groups. Russian troops, it said, had taken advantage of bad weather and identified gaps in Ukrainian defences.
A Russian strike on a children’s hospital in southern Ukraine wounded at least nine people, including four children the youngest of whom was eight, authorities said. “They could not have been unaware of where they were striking,” said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The death toll rose to 23 from a blast at a military factory in the city of Kopeysk, central Russia, authorities said on Wednesday after completing search and rescue operations. Officials have not said what caused the 22 October explosion. The Plastmass plant produces explosives, including for the Russian army.
Volodymyr Kudrytsky, a former Ukrenergo chief suspected of embezzlement, was ordered to be kept in detention by a Kyiv court Wednesday. Kudrytsky was sacked last year from the state energy operator and is accused of misappropriating over US$1.6m of state funds in 2018. Kudrytsky’s dismissal last year was denounced as politically motivated by some members of the company’s board. Anastasia Radina, head of Ukraine’s parliament anti-corruption committee, said that “as of now, the case appears to be nothing more than pressure” against Kudrytsky. According to Ukrainian media, Radina and a few other lawmakers said they were ready to guarantee Kudrytsky’s bail.
A Russian has court sent back to jail the 18-year-old anti-war street busker Diana Loginova, aka Naoko, after finding her guilty of two more offences, her lawyer told AFP. Naoko was initially arrested and sentenced to 13 days’ detention after her viral performances in St Petersburg. Russian human rights monitor OVD-Info said she and her bandmates were caught in jail “carousel” where prosecutors string out minor charges against defendants to keep them in constant custody. Almost all Russian opposition figures have been imprisoned or exiled and public criticism of the authorities or the Ukraine war is rare.
