The fire incident on board the submarine "Losharik" is a great mystery, as it is considered one of the unique, most capable and most distinguished submarines in the Russian naval fleet, especially since it is at the bottom of the list of catastrophic accidents. Russian submarine fleet, without providing any logical explanation for the reasons for this incident.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the submarine operated by its main research and development unit suffered a fire, killing all 14 sailors on board. According to the statement, the ship was operating in the Barents Sea at the time of the accident, i.e. within Russian territorial waters.
There are conflicting reports about what started the fire, whether the sailors suffocated from noxious smoke or other causes, and whether the fire occurred on the naval research submarine or on another submarine.
The authorities in neighboring Norway said they were monitoring the situation but did not detect any unusual rise in radiation levels after the fire that broke out on the Russian submarine.
Per Strand, a director of the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, told Reuters, "We did checks and we did not detect too high levels of radiation in the area."
He added that Russian officials informed the Authority that a gas explosion occurred on board the submarine.
But Russia later denied this. The Interfax news agency quoted the Defense Ministry as saying it had not informed the Norwegian side of a gas explosion.
Although the ship that suffered the disaster was not identified, the Ministry of Defense described it as "a research vehicle dedicated to studying the seabed and tracking the Russian Navy."
However, Russian media reported that the submarine is known as the AS-12, and it carries the same design as the AS-31 submarine, and is called "Blushark" in relation to a cartoon drawing of a horse that was famous during the Soviet era, depicting it in the form of balls superimposed on top of each other.
Both submarines, AS-12 and AS-31 are nuclear powered and have been the subject of speculation and rumors among marine sciences and military experts for several years with the aim of knowing the capabilities and design of these submarines.
According to an expert blogger in marine science, the AS-12 is a special mission submarine for deep-ocean diving, which is operated by the Main Research Unit of the Russian Navy or the General Directorate for Deep Sea Research GUGI.
This nuclear-powered submarine has a crew of up to 25 people, and has been in service since the early 2000s. It is believed to be capable of diving to a depth of up to 6,100 meters.
The submarine is designed in a way that allows it to dive more deeply than Russian submarines or those that carry ballistic missiles.
The submarine is also designed in a way that it can be carried or transported on board a larger submarine, which gives it more protection from being captured by sonar, ultrasound or radar surveillance.
Military analysts said that the submarine that often transports the Losharik is the BS-136 Orenburg, an old Delta-3 missile submarine that has undergone modification.
A military analyst attributes the occurrence of the incident aboard the Losharik to the Russian attempts under President Vladimir Putin to modernize the Russian naval fleet.
US military officials are publicly concerned that Russian forces may be developing new, covert ways to tap into or even cut undersea fiber-optic cables that run across the Atlantic.
Others point to new Russian efforts to go after the network of acoustic arrays and submarine cables that the United States and NATO have deployed for years in the deep sea to track submarines.
GUGI, the Navy's flagship experimental research division, has been behind several state-of-the-art weapon systems in recent years, including a nuclear-powered torpedo.
It is also responsible for the research vessel known as Yantar, which was launched in 2015 and can carry two manned submarines and a remotely operated underwater vehicle.
Yantar includes deep-sea trackers, as well as equipment for top-secret communications cables.
In 2018, the United States went so far as to accuse Moscow of “tracking submarine communications cables” and imposed economic sanctions on a Russian company that allegedly provides underwater diving equipment to the Russian Federal Security Service.
For many Russians, the accident had great resonance, as it is one of the most defining moments for President Putin, including the sinking of the Kursk submarine in 2000, which claimed the lives of 118 sailors.
In a televised meeting with his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin described "this is a great loss for the Navy".
We offer our sincere condolences to the families of the victims. We will do everything in our power to support them, ”added Putin, who canceled the public event today to deal with the incident.
Putin asked the Minister of Defense to go to Severomorsk, the Russian naval base on the Barents Sea where the stricken submarine is located, to find out the causes of the accident and then submit a report to him.
A military expert says that the Russians are investing a lot of effort and money in developing new methods of warfare under the sea, but the legacies dating back to the Soviet era, especially in excessive designs and suspicions of corruption, are still present.
Although it is too early to determine the cause of the fire on board the submarine and whether it was human or mechanical error or not, the Losharik incident is likely to have a significant operational impact on the Sea Research Administration, given the extent of progress of these submarines and their relatively small number in the world.
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