A nuclear ship was burning in Russia: Svitan explained the potential threat from his nuclear installation

The container ship “Sevmorput” caught fire in Murmansk, Russia “with a nuclear reactor. Since the nuclear cargo ship has previously had several serious breakdowns, its use can be dangerous.

Using such a nuclear icebreaker-container ship has certain risks. About them in more detail Channel 24 was told by reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, instructor pilot, military expert Roman Svitan.

What is special about a container ship

The Sevmorput had previously been sent for long repairs, but it did not have to sail for long, because in 2020 it broke down again. The nuclear cargo ship resumed its work again, and already on January 25, 2023, the ship caught fire.

Nuclear container ship “Sevmorput”

This is the only icebreaker in Russia -a transport ship with a nuclear power plant, built at the Kerch shipyard “Zaliv” named after. B.E. Butoma in the period from 1982 to 1988.

There is definitely no nuclear bomb there. The fact is that a nuclear reactor is a thermal collection of nuclear products. The task of this nuclear assembly is heated up under certain conditions. That is, there is a certain excess temperature, and heat is removed mainly under water, explained Roman Svitan.

Almost anything can hang on the turbine of a ship: from an electric generator to even a propeller if necessary. For the most part, all these issues are resolved due to electricity generation.

“These are small nuclear reactors, which are common on nuclear submarines and on this kind of icebreakers. The same nuclear assemblies can sometimes even be located on spacecraft. That is, this is an assembly that is charged once and then changes depending on fuel production.” , – noted the military expert.

“Northern Sea Route” is a really old container ship that has undergone more than one repair. If an explosion suddenly occurs even with the complete destruction of nuclear assemblies, this only threatens contamination with radioactive material. That is, this is not a nuclear explosion in its pure form. But sometimes contamination from nuclear waste is much more dangerous than even a nuclear explosion.

There is still a danger

During a nuclear explosion, the radiation background from the transition to a certain state of this nuclear collection can last for about 40 – 70 years. But there is no radiation contamination as such.

But when a nuclear storage facility is destroyed, nuclear material is scattered over a certain area. It can sometimes persist for hundreds of thousands of years. “It all depends on the half-life of the substance that is in this nuclear assembly,” explained Svitan.

It is not known for certain what happened to the container ship – it could have been spontaneous combustion, or arson.

“Still, any Russian economic activity aimed at the production of military ammunition or the delivery of military ammunition must be under attack,” the reserve colonel emphasized.

According to Svitan, this could be the work of Russian partisans.

Strike on the PDK ” Novocherkask”: what is known

• On the night of December 26, the large landing ship “Novocherkassk” was destroyed in the port of Feodosia. This is a successful Air Force operation. At half past four at night, tactical aviation used cruise missiles to attack the Airborne Command.
• The Russians were unable to hide such a large loss. So the Gauleiter of Crimea, Sergei Aksenov, on the morning of December 26, reported that the ship was indeed damaged, and as a result of the attack, a person allegedly died and two more were injured. Note that the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on the alleged “shooting down of two Su-24s,” from which it seemed that missiles were launched at Novocherkassk.
• Photos of the ship appeared on the Internet in fire. Actually, the ship not only burned, but also detonated. So the tales about only “damage to the ship” can be considered refuted.