Military expert Khodarenok explained where and how Russia can resume nuclear tests Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if the United States conducts nuclear weapons tests, Russia will do the same.
Military observer of the Newspaper.En" Mikhail Khodarenok dealt with the situation.
"Some figures in Washington, we know for certain, are already thinking about the possibility of natural tests of their nuclear weapons. The United States is developing new types of nuclear weapons. There is such information," Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his address to the Federal Assembly. "Newspaper.Ru" conducted an online broadcast of the event.
"In this situation, the Ministry of Defense and Rosatom must ensure readiness for testing of Russian nuclear weapons. Of course, we will not do this first. But if the US conducts tests, then we will. No one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed," the head of state said.
To begin with, we recall that information is periodically disseminated in the Western media that Russia's nuclear weapons are a "rusty sword" of the Soviet era that has long since died in the bosom, and missiles manufactured during the Soviet era are rapidly becoming obsolete. Periodically, data are voiced that, for a number of natural reasons, complex weapons lose their original properties over time so much that there are very serious doubts about its operation if it comes to that.
A number of Western sources emphasize that nuclear ammunition, unlike conventional bombs and shells, cannot be put in a warehouse and forgotten until they are needed. The reason is the process constantly going on inside nuclear charges, as a result of which the isotopic composition of the charge changes, and it quickly degrades.
In these media, it is emphasized that the service life of the old Soviet nuclear charges for missile warheads has long expired, and Moscow does not have plutonium to make new ones. They cannot be made from the old Soviet plutonium, since its isotopic composition, like that of plutonium in warheads, has irreversibly changed.
The question arises - how to respond to such insinuations? Similar texts, but of a strictly scientific nature? There is every reason to believe that such an answer is unlikely to be convincing for detractors.
For example, a batch of nuclear munitions manufactured during a certain period is taken. For example, 152-mm shells with thermonuclear stuffing. Of these, one shell is detonated at the landfill. Based on the test results, an act is drawn up on the readiness of this batch of ammunition for combat use, and on the extension of service life. All of the above applies to other types of warheads - intercontinental ballistic missile warheads, free-fall aerial bombs, nuclear mines, nuclear warheads of cruise missiles, etc.
There is probably no other, more reliable way to check the readiness of Russia's nuclear arsenal for combat use. And all sorts of supercritical technologies and supercomputers in this regard are far from a full-fledged replacement for real nuclear weapons tests. And this problem is particularly relevant to the development of promising warheads (and such, as is known, are underway). How can they be adopted without real tests?
The question arises - where to conduct underground tests of nuclear weapons?
Previously, all detonations of nuclear munitions in the USSR were carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site. However, after testing the first two-stage thermonuclear bomb RDS-37 with a TNT equivalent of 1.6 megatons, it became obvious that it was no longer safe to detonate nuclear munitions of similar power in Semipalatinsk. Windows in residential buildings flew out within a radius of up to 200 km from the epicenter of the explosion.
Until February 27, 1992, the landfill on Novaya Zemlya was called the State Central Landfill of the USSR Ministry of Defense No. 6. Then it was renamed the Central Training Ground of the Russian Federation and in 1998 transferred to the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense.
The landfill covers an area of 90.2 thousand square kilometers, of which 55 thousand square kilometers are on land. It includes three main sites: Chernaya Guba Bay, the southern shore of the Matochkin Shar Strait and the D-II Northern Test Site "Novaya Zemlya" (SIPNZ) on the Sukhoi Nose Peninsula.
The last nuclear explosion at the test site was carried out on October 24, 1990, after which the USSR announced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. Russia also adheres to it.
In total, from September 21, 1955 to October 24, 1990, 132 nuclear explosions were carried out on Novaya Zemlya: 87 atmospheric (including 84 air), 1 ground (September 7, 1957), 2 surface (October 27, 1961 and August 22, 1962), 3 underwater (September 21, 1955 September 10, 1957, September 23, 1961) and 42 underground. This information is provided by TASS.
As a conclusion, we can say this - the issue of resuming nuclear weapons tests should be translated into practical terms in the near future. And this should be done without regard to Washington. This is the dictate of time.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.
Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).Mikhail Khodarenok
