Moscow— Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday confirmed that Russia had successfully tested its nuclear-powered Poseidon super torpedo, hailing it as a major technological and strategic breakthrough.
Speaking while meeting Russian soldiers wounded in the Ukraine war at a hospital in Moscow, Putin revealed that the test took 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 activate the nuclear power unit, which operated for a certain amount of time,” Putin said. “There is nothing like this.”
Describing the test as “a huge success,” Putin claimed the Poseidon’s destructive capability surpasses that of Russia’s most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat, known in NATO as SS-X-29 or “Satan II.” “The Poseidon’s power significantly exceeds the power of even our most promising Sarmat intercontinental-range missile,” he asserted.
Although few technical details have been made public, the Poseidon is believed to be an autonomous, nuclear-capable underwater drone designed to deliver massive nuclear payloads across vast ocean distances. Experts suggest that its detonation could trigger radioactive tsunamis capable of rendering entire coastal regions uninhabitable.
The test marks another step in Russia’s ongoing effort to modernize its strategic arsenal. Just last week, Putin oversaw a nuclear launch drill and later announced the successful test of the nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, another advanced system capable of evading missile defense networks.
Since unveiling the Poseidon and Burevestnik projects in 2018, Putin has portrayed them as strategic countermeasures to the United States’ withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001 and Washington’s subsequent development of a global missile defense system. Moscow has repeatedly argued that such weapons are essential to maintaining strategic balance and deterring potential threats from NATO expansion.
