Russia worries NATO again with something that seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie: nuclear missiles hidden at the bottom of the sea and prepared to be activated remotely.
The program, supposedly known by the name Scythian o Scythianhas been under surveillance by Western agencies for years and has reappeared in investigations by the German networks WDR and NDR and .
The hypothesis because it would change part of the global nuclear strategic balance: platforms hidden under the ocean, extremely difficult to locate and potentially capable of launching nuclear missiles.
The Russian ship that NATO follows
The center of suspicion is in Severodvinsk, one of the great centers of Russian military naval construction located next to the White Sea.
The ship Zvezdochka, a specialized vessel used to transport heavy equipment in the Arctic and deep waters, is based there.
According to Western investigations, the ship would be related to the deployment of underwater silos capable of housing nuclear missiles on the ocean floor.
Intelligence sources also believe that the special submarine Sarov would also participate in the operations.
The idea: hide missiles at the bottom of the sea
The concept consists of placing special containers or silos on the seabed, at depths of hundreds of meters. There they could remain hidden for long periods until receiving a remote launch order.
According to NATO sources cited in the German investigation, Russia has even developed a specific version of the Skif missile based on the Sineva submarine missile. The range would be several thousand kilometers.
An old idea from the Cold War
Although it sounds futuristic, the idea is not new. During the Cold War, Both the US and the Soviet Union studied similar systems.
The research itself recalls that the Pentagon developed the so-called Orca Project in 1980, which analyzed underwater silos anchored to the seabed capable of emerging and launching nuclear missiles.
Finally, the US ruled out advancing in that system due to technical and strategic problems.
Why would Russia want to do it?
Experts believe Moscow is seeking two key advantages. The first is military. A missile hidden under the ocean would be extremely difficult to detect and preventively destroy. Neutralizing it would require enormous anti-submarine resources and very complex maritime operations.
The second is economic. Helge Adrians, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, believes that Russia is trying to reduce some of its dependence on extremely expensive strategic submarines. “Russia could achieve the same effect with relatively less effort and expense”he explains.
The enormous technical problem
But the project also presents gigantic difficulties. Maintaining operational silos at the bottom of the sea requires solving very complex issues: energy supply; secure communications; resistance to marine currents; sedimentation; corrosion; and technical maintenance without revealing the exact location.
Furthermore, testing the system without exposing it publicly would be extremely complicated. That is why several experts believe that the massive deployment of this technology remains unlikely in the short term.
Putin and “superweapons”
The project also fits within Vladimir Putin’s strategy of presenting new “superweapons” capable of challenging the West.
In 2018, Putin already publicly announced systems such as hypersonic missiles, giant nuclear torpedoes and cruise missiles nuclear propulsion.
According to military historian Matthias Uhl, these weapons also have an enormous psychological component. “Its importance lies less in actual combat than in political discourse,” he maintains.
The international treaty that tried to prevent it
The fear of nuclear weapons hidden under the sea is not new. Precisely for this reason the Seabed Treaty was signed in 1971. The agreement prohibits deploying nuclear weapons on international seabeds.
However, there is an important flaw: the treaty does not prevent them from being deployed within their own territorial waters. And there would be precisely the legal margin that Russia could use.
The big question is whether they are already deployed. There is no official confirmation that the missiles Scythian are really operational. Neither NATO nor the Russian Defense Ministry have wanted to comment publicly on the matter.
But the investigation recalls a particularly disturbing statement by Viktor Bondarev, former head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, who stated in 2017 that missiles hidden in the seabed “are part of the arsenal of the Russian armed forces.”
If that’s true, the nuclear war of the future might not come only from submarines or land silos.
