Njonoksa nuclear accident

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The Njonoksa nuclear accident occurred on August 8, 2019 at the Njonoksa naval test site of the Russian Armed Forces on the White Sea . One or two explosions, here the result of a nuclear chain reaction ( criticality accident ), resulted in several fatalities and serious injuries, and radioactivity was also released. The cause was a failed test of a rocket propulsion system, which was often referred to as " miracle weapons ". Evaluations of the available information indicated a failed attempt to rescue a system that had sunk in the sea in October 2018. The Russian authorities did not inform the doctors treating the victims of the nature of the accident.

course

On August 8, one or two explosions had occurred on a test site subject to military secrecy in the northern Russian village of Njonoksa near the port city of Severodvinsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast . According to a confirmation from Rosatom , five of his team members were killed on August 9. In addition, two members of the Russian Defense Ministry died . According to Russian sources, another six people, including three Rosatom employees and three Defense Ministry employees, were injured. Around 100 people were examined for radiation. The injured were taken to two different hospitals and declared that the victims had already been decontaminated. In one of the hospitals, the regional hospital, in contrast to the Semaschko Clinic, which had dosimeters and detectors themselves, no one found out about radiation. The paramedics also flew directly into the contaminated area without any protection and transported the victims away with two civilian helicopters. A mobile radiation laboratory, which could have decontaminated the victims, is said to have driven in the opposite direction to take radiation measurements. Cesium-137 reached the regional hospital with the victims, where measurements were only taken while the operations were already in progress and those taking measurements left the operating rooms in a panic because the dosimeters hit the stop. The hospital was subsequently decontaminated by soldiers.

Apparently a weapon system equipped with a radioactive source, which should have been recovered, exploded under a pontoon in the sea. The source of radioactivity sank or probably remained in the White Sea;

Njonoksa accident

The increased radioactivity values, which were limited to one or a few hours, had already been explained by a nuclear expert as sinking within a few days, at that time still in the ignorance that it had probably been there before. Measurements on the day of the accident in Arkhangelsk and the radiation exposure of the victims show that radioactivity had nevertheless leaked. Short-lived, sometimes unusual radionuclides of strontium -91, barium -139 and 140 and lanthanum -140 have been detected by the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Rosgidromet) . These substances are said to be the decay products of short-lived radioisotopes of the noble gases krypton and xenon, such as those produced in nuclear reactors. According to the Norwegian expert Nils Böhmer , they did not come from a radionuclide battery , as official Russian sources claim, but are evidence of a reactor accident.

The presence of two ships for rescue work was a further indication of the plausible explanation after a month of an attempt to rescue a system sunk in the sea: On the one hand, it was a ship for the transport of radioactive materials and the rescue ship "Zvezdochka" with cranes and submersibles .

Measures and information policy of the Russian government

Russian government agencies largely kept a low profile on the incident and later reported that a liquid jet had exploded. However, there is a video circulating on the Internet in which a Russian officer informs the affected population and also warns against collecting leftover pontoon remains or other objects, as they are radioactive. He also stated that numerous similar tests had taken place previously without the residents' knowledge. Doctors and rescue workers in Arkhangelsk were not adequately informed about the background of the accident, so that they could not adequately protect themselves. The reports on the treatments were confiscated and those affected were bound to secrecy. The President's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said after August 20 that "reports from anonymous sources" would not be commented on. At the same time, he made it clear that if it was a state secret , people would have to adhere to their obligations. On August 14th, however, a doctor reported about it under his name. It was explained to a treating doctor who had cesium-137 in his muscle fibers that this might have come from "Fukushima crabs", which he probably ate during his vacation in Thailand. In fact, however, the cesium came from the radiation exposure that came from those patients who were treated by him after the accident and who subsequently died of radiation sickness .

The state meteorological office Rosgidromet reported briefly four to sixteen times higher radiation values . Local authorities had published the radioactivity measurements in a press release, but the relevant message was later deleted.

After it became known that several Russian radiation measuring stations in the region for the control of the nuclear test ban treaty had been switched off immediately after the accident, Russian authorities declared that the accident had nothing to do with the test ban, but was an internal matter for Russia. The release of data is therefore voluntary, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov . However, the measurement data would have enabled more detailed conclusions to be drawn about the explosion and other activities on the test site.

The faltering and sometimes veiled communication by Russian authorities fueled speculation. Numerous security experts immediately saw a connection to one of the “miracle weapons” that Russian President Putin had presented in March 2018: the strategic cruise missile called Burewestnik , which could travel almost indefinitely thanks to nuclear propulsion , was mostly cited as a suspected affected system. Shortly before the accident, the test facility previously used for this project was relocated from the double island of Nowaya Zemlya to Njonoksa. US intelligence agencies favored this version.

There were various indications that August 2019 was not a flight test; At that time there were no no-fly zones ( NOTAMs ), which is why it was assumed that no flight test took place on August 8, but that a missile that crashed in 2018, possibly including its non-functioning launch stage, should have been recovered from the sea. According to consistent statements, the explosion occurred under water.

A Russian military expert, following the official Russian information about the involvement of a radionuclide battery and before the announcement of the isotopes found, which indicated a nuclear reactor, considered the possibilities in the Novaya Gazeta , if it was not Burewestnik: He considered one as the causative system A variant of the normally submarine-based ICBM of the R-29 type, which can be stationed on the seabed, is possible, since it is obvious that a radionuclide source would be used to maintain its power supply over a longer period of time . Due to the decay elements known from August 26th, however, a radionuclide battery was probably not responsible for the radiation in the accident.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Two explosions likely occurred during the incident near Arkhangelsk - Norwegian Seismological Center , Reuters, August 23, 2019
  2. ↑ Christoph Seidler: Federal government confirms: nuclear accident in Severodvinsk was a nuclear chain reaction . In: Spiegel Online . October 28, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 28, 2019]).
  3. ↑ a b c Putin stated that those killed near Severodvinsk had made unprecedented weapons , Interfax, November 21, 2019
  4. ↑ Russia's Nuclear Wonder Weapon - Reality or Science Fiction? , DW, August 14, 2019
  5. ↑ a b "The water column rose 100 meters" , rferl, August 29, 2019 (Russian)
  6. ^ A b Arkhangelsk Doctors Weren't Warned About Radiation, Surgeon Confirms in First Public Account , The Moscow Times, 23 August 2019
  7. ↑ Russia explosion: Five confirmed dead in rocket blast , BBC, August 9, 2019; "The three injured staff members suffered serious burns in the accident."
  8. ↑ Exclusive: Russian Doctors Say They Weren't Warned Patients Were Nuclear Accident Victims , The Moscow Times, August 16, 2019
  9. ↑ a b 'There's no danger. Get to work. ' Following a radioactive incident outside Arkhangelsk, Russia's military didn't warn medical staff about their contaminated patients , Meduza, August 22, 2019; "Some time later, when we were already in surgery with the patients, the dosimetrists showed up and started measuring beta-radiation levels. They ran out of the operating room in terror. Doctors caught them in the hallway, and they confessed that the beta radiation was off the scale. "
  10. ↑ «Фонила ванна, военные увезли ее на КамАЗе" , Novaya Gazeta, August 21, 2019
  11. ↑ a b Njonoksa- everyone out! , Novaya Gazeta, August 14, 2019
  12. ↑ a b Russian officials blame food for traces of radiation in doctor treating blast victims , The Guardian, August 25, 2019
  13. ↑ Christian Esch: Putin's fatal miracle weapon. In: spiegel.de. Spiegel Online , August 13, 2019, accessed on August 16, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Jeffrey Lewis: A Mysterious Explosion Took Place in Russia. What Really Happened? In: foreignpolicy.com. Foreign Policy , August 12, 2019; accessed August 16, 2019 (American English).
  15. ↑ a b c d e What is now known about the nuclear accident at the White Sea - and why it casts a bad light on the authorities by Markus Ackeret, Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 23 August 2019, viewed on 24 August 2019
  16. ↑ Rosgidromet found radioactive isotopes in air samples after the emergency near Severodvinsk , Novaya Gazeta, August 26, 2019
  17. ↑ Russian Weather Agency Says Radioactive Isotopes Found After Accident , rferl, August 26, 2019
  18. ↑ Christian Speicher, Andreas Rüesch: "The evidence from Russia clearly points to an accident with a nuclear reactor" Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 28, 2019
  19. ^ Andreas Rüesch: Nuclear accident in Russia: Unsuccessful rescue operation as an explanation. In: nzz.ch. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 1, 2019, accessed on September 2, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Wolfgang Greber: Russia: Accident with an experimental nuclear missile? In: diepresse.com. Die Presse , August 11, 2019, accessed on August 16, 2019 .
  21. ↑ a b 'Somebody wants to distort the truth' The Kremlin rejects anonymous reports by doctors that the military didn't warn them about radiation risks after an engine-test explosion , Meduza , 23 August 2019
  22. ↑ 'There's no danger. Get to work. ' Following a radioactive incident outside Arkhangelsk, Russia's military didn't warn medical staff about their contaminated patients , Meduza, August 22, 2019; "At Burnazyan, they found cesium in one of my colleagues. (...) At the medical center, they asked him where he's gone on vacation in the past few years. He started listing all the places, and said he'd been to Thailand at some point. When they heard this, they said where there's Thailand, there's Japan: "You must have eaten some Fukushima crabs!" The man had been in contact with cesium for several hours, he'd participated in surgeries [with irradiated patients], and he'd stood over the patients without a respirator mask. Then he goes in for an examination, and they tell him: "Oops, well, it's your own fault. You brought it home from Thailand."
  23. ↑ SPIEGEL ONLINE: Radiation victims after missile test in Russia: "You think nothing has changed since Chernobyl". Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  24. ↑ Radiation in Severodvinsk after test site accident notably exceeded background rate. In: tass.com. TASS , August 13, 2019, accessed on August 16, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Did Putin's super weapon explode? In: faz.net. FAZ.NET , August 14, 2019, accessed on August 16, 2019 .
  26. ↑ John Fritze: 'Not good!' Donald Trump blames Russia for mysterious 'Skyfall' explosion, radiation spike. In: eu.usatoday.com. USA Today , August 12, 2019; accessed August 16, 2019 (American English).
  27. ↑ Рассуждения в пользу «Скифа». In: Novaya Gazeta . August 17, 2019, accessed August 28, 2019 (Russian, reasoning in favor of the SS-N-23 Skiff ).
  28. ↑ Russia says radioactive isotopes released by mystery blast , The Guardian, August 26, 2019

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