Russian navy officer: Fire on Russian nuclear submarine could have led to "planetary catastrophe"

Further information that has emerged about the July 1 fire on the Russian nuclear submarine Losharik in the Barents Sea, which forms part of the Russian Arctic, sheds light on the enormous dangers bound up with the preparations for world war. The fire claimed the lives of 14 high-ranking Russian navy officers.

Russian president Vladimir Putin called the disaster a “big loss to the Russian navy and army.” The Kremlin has classified details about the disaster as a “state secret.” The navy officers on board had all been trained in St. Petersburg and were, according to the newspaper Izvestiia, “the best in Russia.” They were directly subordinated to the Ministry of Defense. The Losharik is deployed by the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, which reports to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.

At the funeral for the 14 officers on Sunday, an aide to the commander of Russia’s navy, Captain Sergei Pavlov, suggested that a nuclear disaster had been narrowly averted by the crew: “With their lives, they saved the lives of their colleagues, saved the vessel and prevented a planetary catastrophe.”

The Kremlin subsequently denied the gravity of the threat posed by the fire, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisting that “there are no problems” with the nuclear reactor. Initially, the Kremlin had denied that a nuclear reactor had been on board the submarine at all.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/12/russ-j12.html