Rocket Explosion Not Your Business

[Rogue Valley]

Rocket Explosion Not Your Business, Russia Tells Nuclear Test Ban Monitor as Suspicions Swirl

Silence at several Russian monitoring stations has raised fears that Moscow is hiding the extent of the blast that killed five people.

8/20/19
Russia told an international organization set up to verify a ban on nuclear tests that a military testing accident in northern Russia earlier this month was none of its business and that handing its radiation data was entirely voluntary. Russia has acknowledged that five nuclear workers were killed in the explosion on Aug. 8, which occurred during a rocket engine test at sea in far northern Russia. The Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said that four Russian monitoring sites closest to the mysterious explosion went offline days after the blast, fueling suspicions that Russia may have tampered with them. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country's transmission of data from radiation stations to the CTBTO was voluntary and that the Aug. 8 accident was not a matter for the CTBTO anyway, Interfax reported Tuesday. “The issue isn’t that [radiation] levels are dangerous for people, it’s just a matter of secrecy [for the authorities],” Andrei Frolov, the co-chair of Moscow's Public Environmental Organizations Union, told The Moscow Times.

The four stations may have intentionally stopped transmitting signals to hide the composition of isotopes involved in the accident from other countries, an unnamed nuclear industry source told the Znak.com news website later on Tuesday. Russia's state nuclear agency, Rosatom, has said that the accident involved “isotope power sources.” The CTBTO said on Tuesday the radioactive-particle sensors of at least one of the four Russian monitoring stations in question were transmitting again. There has been contradictory information about the accident's consequences. The Defense Ministry initially said background radiation remained normal after the incident, but Russia's state weather agency said radiation levels in the nearby city of Severodvinsk had risen by up to 16 times.

A nuclear accident? Simply turn off all relevant internal data transmitted to the international nuclear community. That's how the Putin regime rolls.

Related: Silence At Russian Nuclear-Monitoring Stations Fuel Fears Over Extent Of Deadly Blast

 

[Rogue Valley]

Whatever exploded seemed to do so from a barge or a floating raft about a half mile offshore of the State Central Navy Testing Range near the village of Nyonoksa on the White Sea.

Satellite pictures and an automatic AIS ID transmission on the morning of the explosion show that the Russian ship RFS Serebyanka was anchored bout a 1.5 miles offshore. This is a special ship that transports nuclear fuel. It can also clean water contaminated by radiation. The Serebyanka remains in the closed White Sea area.

The RFS Serebyanka