Tragedy in the Barents Sea: how 14 Russian sailors died

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The tragedy in the Barents Sea, as a result of which 14 Russian sailors were killed and the unique Russian nuclear deep-water station AS-12 (Losharik), designed for sabotage operations, removing information from underwater cables, spying on enemy submarines, was damaged. it is no coincidence that it appeared on the front pages of the world media and is doomed to cause the most serious political consequences even if the most obvious version that the boat suffered as a result of the US sabotage is not confirmed.

First, because the very fact that Russia has such weapons has become a revelation for many Western "partners". And secondly and most importantly, because no one would believe in the “non-military” version of such a tragedy, just as most of the patriots and the military did not believe the conclusions of the official investigation that the Kursk died itself, without the participation of an American torpedo. It is another matter that Putin from the time of the Kursk death and the current Putin are essentially different people, and the current army (and therefore Russia itself) is not like Yeltsin's. We are waiting for an honest investigation and an adequate tough reaction from Russia.

The tragedy at the AS-12 is gradually becoming overgrown with details. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, among the dead in the team of the Russian deep-sea research vehicle that caught fire in the Barents Sea, there were two Heroes of Russia. "This is not an ordinary ship, we all know, this is a research vessel, the crew is highly professional. In accordance with your preliminary reports, out of 14 dead, seven are captains of the first rank, two are Heroes of Russia. This is a great loss for the fleet, and indeed for army ", - said the President of Russia.

The tragedy became known the day before yesterday from the reports of the Norwegian media, and yesterday the information was confirmed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself. The media immediately rushed to put forward the most varied, including fantastic things, tell how many submarines we lost, accuse the crew, etc. Moreover, a large part of them did not even bother to find out the difference between a nuclear submarine (nuclear submarine) and an AGS (nuclear deep-water station), and the difference there is greater than between a train and a sports car. Even more zealous "experts" began to blame the crew, but the detachment was assembled from the best submariner officers long before the device was launched into the water - back in 1976, has hundreds of dives behind its backs and those who came to it received practice that they did not have there is no one in the world except the Americans. There are not just "pros" serving there - they are the real elite. Actually, the fact that the guys brought the lit bathyscaphe to the port speaks volumes, if not everything. This also buries the version about the new "Kursk" - despite the emergency, the submariners saved the station and returned home. It is understandable why the military was silent about the tragedy - this project is so secret that until this July there were only rumors about it, which Russia denied.

Thus, there are only three versions of what happened - a sabotage or attack by NATO forces, the lack of professionalism of the technical team preparing the submarine, a tragic accident. But first, let's understand what the AS-12 Losharik project is all about. According to the media, this is a fairly new Russian nuclear-powered deep-sea submarine, launched in Severodvinsk in absolute secrecy on August 26, 1995 - yes, even the corrupt Yeltsin government understood the importance of the secrecy of such an apparatus. According to the official Russian naval classification, it is a nuclear deep-water station. In fact, it is the most invulnerable submarine in the entire Russian fleet, as it is said to be able to dive to an unthinkable depth of up to 6 kilometers. Where none of the existing means of destruction in the world can get it. It was developed in the 80s of the last century back in the USSR by the designers of the Malakhit Design Bureau.

"Losharik" is equipped with a manipulator, telegrafeyr (bucket with a TV camera), dredge (rock cleaning system), as well as a hydrostatic tube. And here we go to January 2018, when the Western media went into hysteria after the NATO statement, in which the alliance expresses concern about the safety of underwater communication lines due to the activity of Russian submarines. Then, high-ranking representatives of the US and British navies said that for many years they had been warning of the catastrophic consequences that a possible attack by Russian ships on Internet cables would lead to, and such an attack would result in financial collapse for the country.

Journalists then tried to reassure the population, saying that if the cable was cut, users in Europe and the United States would be switched to another line, and if Russia in some incredible way managed to completely cut off the United States from the Internet, Americans would be able to use terrestrial networks for communication within the country. But a year and a half passed and an emergency happened on one of the few devices capable of doing this. Moreover, "Losharik" could not only cut cables, but what is much more important - secretly read information from there, as the Americans themselves do. Actually, they and we are the only countries that have long possessed special-purpose submarines for secret "wiretapping" of cables laid in the World Ocean.

The standard carrier of our AS-12 and our "Jimmy Carter" is a unique special nuclear submarine BS-136 "Orenburg", converted by 2002 according to project 09786 from the strategic nuclear missile submarine of Project 667BDR "Kalmar". During the reconstruction, due to a special insert in the middle of the hull, the total length of the nuclear-powered ship was increased from 155 to 162.5 meters. BS-136 is designed for covert underwater transportation of Losharik over long distances. Further, the deep-water station, separated from the "Orenburg", is able to independently carry out very delicate combat missions. "Orenburg" together with another similar nuclear submarine carrier BS-64 "Podmoskovye" is part of the 29th separate submarine brigade of the Main Directorate for deep-sea operations.

Our competitor is the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), built according to the Seawolf project. It carries its own Losharik, a special compact autonomous mini-submarine (Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS)). Separated from "Jimmy Carter", the US-based ASDS goes to the bottom next to the communication line. The eavesdropping device is attached using a specially designed camera launched from a submarine. And that's all - all mail files, correspondence in social networks, phone and video calls, even if they are open or closed, in their pocket. "Imagine being pointed at your face with a fire hydrant - that's about the kind of data you get." After all, only one cable of the TyCom company, laid on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, has the ability to transmit 100 million conversations at the same time ", - said one of the retired technical staff of the American NSA - the US National Security Agency about his project. The very organization that persecuted Snowden and entangled the entire planet with wiretapping.

There is one more important function of this submarine. One of the tasks of the 29th submarine division is to find and recover from the bottom experimental samples of equipment and missile debris lost during the tests after practical sea firing. Including our latest developments, including the Zircon anti-ship hypersonic missile, which was tested in April 2017. According to Konstantin Sivkov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, the adoption of the "Zircon" "Will lead to the fact that the role of the American aircraft carrier forces specifically in the naval confrontation will be sharply weakened in favor of our heavy nuclear cruisers, which are planned to be equipped with these missiles." But this is generally unacceptable for the Americans. And all the secret services of the world hunted for information about this missile.

And here it is not worth building the illusion that no one needs us there and that NATO's desire to quickly seize Russia is only propaganda. Friends, NATO is already a couple of hundred kilometers from St. Petersburg, in Poland, in the hero city of Odessa, right now, American soldiers are rehearsing a war with Russia, a NATO military base is being built in Ukrainian Nikolaev, American PMCs are quietly walking around the Kharkov region, and this is, for a minute, just over 600 km in a straight line to Moscow. The United States is consistently withdrawing from one missile treaty after another. In 2017 alone, $ 4.6 billion was spent on the preparation of the anti-Russian military group. There should be no illusions here, with or without Putin, but Russia will always pose a threat to the United States because of its size and Eurasian location - this is what American officers are taught in their institutions based on geopolitics textbooks.

And then "suddenly" Russia was taken out of the game in the field of underwater reconnaissance. Either completely for a while, or partially, if we have several more similar devices. Worse yet, 14 true super-professionals have died, with hundreds of dives that are unlikely to be replaced quickly. And too many "coincidences" have come together in this story. So the version of a possible sabotage in preparation for the sailing of the submarine comes out on top. Moreover, the conversation here is not about the crew - the men spent their whole lives in the service of the Motherland, but about those who prepared the apparatus for sailing. It is practically impossible to find an unusable sensor on land that will fail under enormous pressure, and it is not so difficult for the specialists at the disposal of the United States to do this if they introduce their own person into the technical team or bribe someone who already works there. After all, the officers do not prepare the station themselves - a whole cohort of technicians is engaged in this.

However, it is worth checking the technical brigade itself for aptitude, moreover, starting with the management. Remembering how, after the arrival of "effective managers" at the Voronezh Mechanical Plant, the engines for our space rockets collected a locksmith with a salary of 17 thousand rubles, and then they began to fall, it would be worth paying attention to whether there appeared banal saboteurs and lovers of "sawing" and there.

And of course, no one canceled the will of chance. Any equipment, even the most proven and reliable, breaks down, and the fact that the submarine's crew brought the device back to their own, paying for it with the lives of more than half of it, is a real feat of Russian sailors. A feat that, in spite of all the secrecy must be inscribed in textbooks, the example of these officers should be used to educate young cadres, and all our youth, and our sons should be proud of their fathers.

Glory to those who remained alive and eternal memory of the lost.