Sergey Shoigu in Thursday morning met with President Putin following his trip to Severomorsk, the Northern Fleet headquarters, on Wednesday. Whatever happened aboard the Losharik, its importance to Russia is highlighted by statements made by its defense officials.Īccording to the defense minister, the special purpose submarine can be fully restored and taken back in service. Questions are arising among American defense experts as to whether the cables are being targeted for spying, destruction, or both. “Little is known about the nature of those voyages,” The Barents Observer writes, “except reports of significantly increased activity along subsea cables which carry global electronic communication.”Īs this Fox News Channel report notes, the increased activity was also associated with several massive and unusual outages. The submarine is considered highly classified and the only known photo appeared in the Russian magazine version of Top Gear, when it accidentally sailed into a camera shot.Īccording to The Barents Observer GUGI reports directly to the General Staff of the Armed Forces and GUGI’s fleet of nine submarines frequently depart on “special missions”. Although described as a scientific research submarine, she is assigned to the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, known by its Russian acronym GUGI. Losharik is designed to operate on the ocean floor, front-mounted flood lights, remotely operated arms for manipulated equipment, and retractable ski feet for sitting on the seabed. This incident has occurred in conjunction with reports of increased activity along underwater communication cables. The handle is a play on the fact that the submarine is internally made up of up to seven interlinked high pressure orbs designed to relieve pressure at the exceedingly deep depths in which it is suppose to operate. The submarine Losharik is named after a Russian cartoon horse made up of juggling balls. That an important Russian system was being tested or demonstrated was suggested by reports “that among the 14 dead were 7 senior navy captains and 2 ‘Heroes of Russia.'” The presence of so many Russian navy worthies raises questions because brass do not typically twiddle dials on mini-submarines, but watch them being twiddled until something goes horribly wrong. PJ Media‘s Richard Fernandez notes that the Russian dead include several key naval officers.Ī tragic fire aboard a secret Russian nuclear “mini-sub” in the Barents Sea that killed 14 senior sailors has refocused media attention on a little-noticed flash-point of the world: the Arctic. More on this incident is in the following video report: Sitting across from each other in the Kremlin, the two men discussed the 14 navy personnel killed in a fire on a deep-sea vessel near Severomorsk. “It’s a huge loss for the navy - and for the military overall,” Putin said in a televised meeting with Shoigu on Wednesday. All the necessary measures were taken by the crew to protect the reactor which is in complete working order,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin, according to a Kremlin transcript. “The Nuclear reactor on the vessel is completely isolated and unmanned.
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