Russian President Vladimir Putin has suffered an emabarassing setback as his feared Satan 2 nuclear arsenal failed four out of five missile tests, according to arms experts and satellite imagery from the launch site.
High-resolution satellite images of the launch pad at Russia’s Plesetsk test site, where the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile exploded, shows extensive damage.
A crater approximately 60 meters wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, along with visible damage in the surrounding area that was not present in images taken earlier in the month.
Most nukes are designed such that they only create a nuclear blast when detonated electronically.
We’ve had nukes fall out of airplanes and explode, or nuclear-tipped missiles explode in the silo, without a nuclear blast.
All of those happened before the modern safeguards were adopted by the US. We’re lucky none of them went super-critical. We just don’t know for sure if the Soviet leftovers Russia has were upgraded to the same atandards.
Which modern safeguards are you talking about? There’s been ~32 official broken arrow incidents between 1950 and 1980, and multiple safeguards were tried during that period. Modern 2 point detonation safety goes back to the early 60s
We do know the soviets had their own share of accidents. I wasn’t able to find any info on soviet nuclear weapon design safety mechanisms, but I feel like we’d have seen at least one nuclear blast if they didn’t have them.