Losharik … One of the Russian navy’s most secret vessels, the Losharik has only been photographed once — in the background, by accident, during a 2015 shoot for Russia’s edition of “Top Gear”. She is operated by the Russian Navy on behalf of GUGI (Main Directorate Deep Sea Research). They left around midday on June 25, five days before the fateful accident. History and features. John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the Losharik fire suggested that the Russian military was still contending with some longstanding issues: corrupt contractors, and problems with quality control in manufacturing, spare parts supply chains and maintenance. Moore; NOAA. A Russian specialist military journal, Voyennoye Obozrenie, reports that the Losharik can descend to 6,000m, is about 79m long, has a displacement of 2,000 tonnes and can reach a speed of 30 knots. Russia and Norway, Ms. Liland said, have an agreement to notify each other in the case of incidents involving nuclear installations. Some of the crew, including the captain, reportedly stayed in the affected compartment to ensure the safety of the others. As for the accident itself, few expressed surprise that a jewel of the Russian submarine fleet might catch fire not very far from its home base — probably in water no more than 1,000 feet deep — leaving most of its crew dead. Russian sailors at a memorial service for the men who died on the Losharik. The AS-31 (it was … She is operated by the euphemistically named Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, better known as GUGI. I can now say that she arrived on June 24. “This wouldn’t be like going into a burning house, ” Mr. Lobner said. The submarine at the centre of the fire that killed at least 14 crew members in Arctic waters on Monday is the most mysterious and closely guarded of Russia’s fleet. Suddenly and completely surfaces. What does all this mean? … Two of them were in intensive care. The next day, a spokesman for Mr. Putin said information on the accident “belongs to the category of top-secret data.”, In the following days, Mr. Putin posthumously conferred the nation’s highest honor, Hero of the Russian Federation, to four of the crew members and lesser awards to the other 10. Sander Badar of the Norwegian Army watching the waters off Russia’s northern coast. The only thing more mysterious than what exactly went wrong that day is what the sub was doing in a thousand feet of water just 60 nautical miles east of Norway in the first place. These are the men who perished. Not everyone seems worried about that. The natural gas from the Yamal will ultimately feed the pipeline now being built through the Baltic Sea to supply Western Europe. It should be mentioned that Losharik is transported to her missions attached to the underside of a much larger mother submarine. “Undetected is the key word. Its inner hull is thought to consist of a series of titanium spheres holding the control room, the bunks, the nuclear reactor and other equipment. Talk:Russian submarine Losharik. This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Russian submarine Losharik article. And Russia’s Secret Undersea Agenda. OFF THE COAST OF NORWAY — There could hardly have been a more terrifying place to fight a fire than in the belly of the Losharik, a mysterious deep-diving Russian submarine. Also in attendance was the giant Typhoon Class submarine Dmitriy Donskoy, which was later reported to have been involved in anti-submarine exercises around this time. But the most secret department of the Russian Defense Ministry whose functions are known to very few insiders is also referred to as “Losharik.”. Projekt 10831 (russisch Лошарик, Loscharik ) ist ein experimentelles, nuklearbetriebenes Forschungs-U-Boot der russischen Marine. “We go as deep as we need to go, as fast as we need to go,” Admiral Padgett said. The only civilian witnesses to the rescue that followed the fire may have been a ragtag band of Russians fishing illegally in the area. In official sources she is known by her hull number, AS-12. Even Pvt. Using OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) to get to the stories first. The mothership, a Delta IV class sub called Podmoskovye, Space between hull and spheres contains seawater and equipment such as ballast tanks, seawater and equipment such as ballast tanks, Batteries most likely placed in two compartments, Sources: Revised edition of “Cold War Submarines” by Norman Polmar and K.J. The story was later removed. The fire onboard the Losharik (AS-31) submarine broke out on July 1 in the evening.. All 14 sailors died. Losharik, which is formally known as AS-21, is the sole Project 10831 submarine. As recently as a few years ago, American military and intelligence officials reported that Russian submarines had often been operating near them. A common procedure when there is a fire on a sub is to close the hatches to slow its spread. Its name, it appears, was taken from an old Russian cartoon character, a horse assembled from small spheres. Put new text under old text. The Northern Fleet is at the top of Mr. Putin’s military budget, which included top-drawer items like the most advanced surface vessels and cruise missiles. That is possibly a coincidence, but it could also be for protection during some phases of the mission. The accident occurred very close to the Russian coast, reportedly as Losharik was docking with the BS-64. The coast of Norway, near the Russian  border, as seen though binoculars from a Norwegian Coast Guard ship. by the Russian edition of “Top Gear.”. It is the biggest accident in the Russian Navy since 2008 when an accident in the «Nerpa» nuclear powered sub killed 20 sailors off the Russian Pacific coast. titanium spheres can resist terrific pressure. Russia will reportedly soon tow its top-secret nuclear-powered Project 10831 Losharik spy submarine to a shipyard in northwestern Russian for extensive repairs. Few want to talk about how 14 sailors met their deaths on a Russian engineering marvel. The boat … In the months since the fire, he said, the Russians have carried out their largest naval exercises since the Cold War. “That’s the creepiest place you ever want to be on a submarine,” Mr. Lobner said. But Col. Eystein Kvarving, chief of public affairs at Norwegian Joint Headquarters made clear that the stakes are high. While the story was still making headlines around the globe, on July 4 BS-64 discretely slipped back to Olenya Guba. The crew quarters would be small and could quickly fill with smoke, he said. “This is a very Russian story,” said Jeffrey Mankoff, a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. More on that later. Mr. Lobner, the former American submarine officer, said “we have nothing except unmanned vehicles” operating at such depths. Col. Eystein Kvarving of the Norwegian Army. “This is part of Russia’s newfound capability of messing with us,” Mr. Boulègue said. Sander Badar, a young conscript in the Norwegian Army, guarded his words carefully as he trained a pair of huge binoculars on the waters off Russia’s northern coast from his observation post on a ridge nearly a thousand feet above the Barents Sea. these 14 Russian were an extraordinary crew of top elite captains. They reported that between 10 and 14 people died and that about 5 injured. When TASS, the Russian news agency, first reported the Losharik fire, it said 14 sailors had been killed aboard a “deep-sea station,” without mentioning its nuclear reactor. As convoluted as it is in so many ways, the tale of the Losharik, and the growing power of Russia’s Northern Fleet, begins with at least one very simple explanation, said Professor Zysk, the Norwegian analyst. The extraordinary incident may offer yet another clue to Russia’s military ambitions in the deep sea, and how they figure into a plan to leverage Arctic naval power to achieve its strategic goals around the globe — including the ability to choke off vital international communication channels at will. And if they were in the chamber containing the battery compartment where the trouble appears to have started, they may have been battling flames raging in spaces as narrow as a couple of feet, said Peter Lobner, a former electrical officer on a United States submarine. Her work probably involves the seabed communications cables and sonar networks which litter the world's oceans. It is unclear whether there is a connection between the presence of all three submarines. Japan Is About To Waste Its F-35s Shadowing Chinese Planes, Active Landing Gear That Launch An Airplane Like A Bird Caught The Air Force’s Attention, Guns Don’t ‘Play Well’ With Lego, But BrickArms Will Weaponize Your Minifigures, As United Starts To Hire Again, Its Pilots Reach Out To Help Those Whose Airlines Failed, Gun Sales Soar From Stimulus And Biden’s Gun Control Plan Amid Mass Shootings, Five Reasons Why Delta Airlines Outperforms Its Three Largest Competitors. The crew began succumbing to smoke inhalation, and there may have been an explosion in the battery compartment, the newspaper said. There are also cables linking the sonar listening devices that litter the ocean floor. Using OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) to get to the stories first. The best public view of the sub came a few years later, in 2015, when it surfaced during a photo shoot of a Mercedes S.U.V. However, according to RBC, it is the 74 meter long «Losharik» (AS-31) that is the vessel in question. I mostly write about submarines. Here's Everything We Know About The Deadly Russian Submarine Fire (Updated) Reports and rumors are flying about the accident, which may have been aboard the shadowy spy sub Losharik… Due to financial constraints in Russia following the collapse, the Losharik was not commissioned until 2003. Jump to navigation Jump to search. Beyond Russia’s need to protect the nuclear deterrent itself, the key to understanding Russian’s keen interest in the Arctic, Professor Zysk said, is to bear in mind what Moscow does not want to do: become directly involved in any extended conflict with NATO. And she operates from Olenya Guba which is GUGI's secret base in the Arctic – the same base as the Russian Navy's beluga whales, one of which turned up in Norway in April. Mr. Polmar said there was “nothing in the U.S. fleet to match” the depths that the Losharik can take its crew. The stricken submarine was also made of interlinked titanium balls. “The Russian understanding is that the level of unacceptable damage is much lower in Europe and the West than during the Cold War,” she said. Billions of dollars have been spent on fields for gas production on the Yamal Peninsula, where total volumes are estimated at almost 17 trillion cubic meters. In 2012 she damaged her manipulator arms while on a mission under the Ice Cap. Cutaway illustration of AS-12 Losharik showing the 7 orb-like internal hulls. “It can go slowly to the bottom and it won’t crack,” he said. With all that naval power, the quickest way for Russia to surprise the United States would be to steam from the Arctic to the North Atlantic, said Heather A. Conley, senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Moore. There is also an eye toward economic benefit, Ms. Conley said: Russia has made no secret of its desire to control a northern shipping lane through the Arctic as ice recedes because of climate change and to expand its oil and gas production. Her all-officer crew are elite submariners known as Hydronauts. Something, it appears, had gone terribly wrong in the battery compartment as the sub made its way through Russian waters 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle on the First of July. Still, while some see an engineering marvel, others see evidence that Russia may be unable to build the kind of sophisticated, autonomous underwater drones the United States appears to rely on. This wasn't Losharik's first underwater accident. BLUF: On July 1 the Russian special purpose submarine project 10831, AS-31 'Losharik', designated as a… Biden’s Gun Control Doesn’t Target Gat Cranks Mimicking Machine Guns. The official name for this submarine type is " Project 210 ". A funeral for the crew members of the submarine was held in St. Petersburg. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Why Russia did not secure the area is unknown, but if the fisherman’s account is accurate, it appears they were the only outside witnesses to the secret rescue operation. They were fishing in a restricted area — but they decided to talk about what they saw anyway. The battery was used to power Losharik’s maneuvering systems (this bit kind of made sense, still unclear why the energy from the reactor was not sufficient). Moscow won’t admit it, but Russian news outlets have reported the submarine to have been the top-secret AS-31 Losharik. “We were heading towards Kildin,” a nearby island, the fisherman told a SeverPost reporter in a phone call, “and then, about half past nine in the evening, a submarine surfaces. Mr. Lobner said that even in an ordinary nuclear submarine, clearances in the battery compartment are so narrow that a routine inspection often requires shimmying through in a prone or supine position. Russia says it plans to fully restore the sub and put it back into service. Author of several books on Submarines, Special Forces and Narco subs. But the Losharik is not just any submarine. has not released any photos of this secretive submarine. No matter where in the world a conflict might be brewing, cutting those undersea cables, Professor Zysk said, might force an adversary to think twice before risking an escalation of the dispute. Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, in the United Kingdom, said a specialized craft like the Losharik might help test the West’s ability to respond if cables were cut. Cut-away of the Russian mini-submarine Losharik, thought to be capable of cutting internet cables on the sea-bed. More on that later. 14 Russian Sailors died IN July 14 Russian Sailors died in a fire in submarine. A fire on any submarine may be a mariner’s worst nightmare, but a fire on the Losharik was a threat of another order altogether. “I just think the whole thing is held together with a lot of baling wire and spit.”. Onlookers may have been unaware that the injured submarine was out of sight, attached to the bottom of the visible host submarine. “Unfortunately,” she said, “Russia interprets that agreement not to include military installations such as submarines.”. The fire was in the battery compartment; even nuclear submarines have batteries as a backup. 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