A Russian ship sank in mysterious circumstances. It may have been carrying submarine nuclear reactors to North Korea
Posted by kapuh@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 116 comments
Firecracker048@reddit
Strikes me as something the CIA would totally do tbh. Spain being tight lipped about what happened? US Nuclear sniffers going over it, Russia ensuring the remains of the ship cant be captured? Yeah this was 100% some clandestine spy shit in cooperation with the Spanish government
PerforatedPie@reddit
Maybe it was the CIA... or maybe the plan was to deliver the reactors to the submarines under water.
ThanosDidNadaWrong@reddit
so it was an undercover mission
duckswithbanjos@reddit
Underwater* mission
GoyoMRG@reddit
Moist quest*
snowflake37wao@reddit
belowboard
m0ngoos3@reddit
The reactors would need to be installed in dry dock. They're not the sort of thing that can be plugged in from outside. I mean, water would get into the plug.
PerforatedPie@reddit
Well this is why they use wet reactors instead of dry reactors.
byyhmz@reddit
Woosh
the_grand_midwife@reddit
Based on that last line I think they were fucking around as well. Or are super dumb. Maybe?
Hitcher06@reddit
Trump?
_Enclose_@reddit
Honestly, there's not much I wouldn't see the CIA doing. That agency surely holds the records of most batshit insane operations. And that's just counting the things we eventually found out about.
SerDuckOfPNW@reddit
For all the craziness going on in the world, the CIA has somehow remained out of the media.
PsychologicalSet8678@reddit
Because it controls the media lol. CIA acts on the behalf of the same oligarchy that controls the media.
SerDuckOfPNW@reddit
That implies a level of competency that I would not have believed possible from this administration
kardianaxel@reddit
Really? "ex-CIA" people are all over podcasts these days
Meow-The-Jewels@reddit
Not saying you should believe the conspiracy theories about them pretty much assassinating anybody that goes against them but ya know
Virtual-Pension-991@reddit
Probably only one country that loves to macho their military only to end up destroyed during an airport capture and secure mission in Ukraine.
DividedState@reddit
They should investigate foreign entanglement of presidents
kardianaxel@reddit
And intel agencies, drug cartels and politicized churches fighting for the "trad values". Like how CPAC was funded by Hungarian taxpayer money... Pro russia and Pro Israel.
Then almost overnight half of the putinist MAGA types are jumping ship and blasting Trump.
Rovcore001@reddit
As with most organisations of that nature, it’s more likely that their Hollywood portrayals probably flatter them immensely and the reality is relatively underwhelming.
mrgoobster@reddit
The one thing that seems undisputed is that the CIA has bottomless pockets.
PlutosGrasp@reddit
Hopefully. I just want to know if some cool music was played like when I forget which countries nuclear centrifuges were spun out of control and thunderstruck I think started playing.
theoreoman@reddit
Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if the Russians did it to themselves. Even Russia doesn't want nuclear proliferation to any other country.
North Korea provided a lot of troops and munition for the Russian war effort. By the sounds of it the Russians agreed to provide nuclear technology.
So if the Russians leaked the information to an informant and then let the events unfold naturally they could still tell North Korea they held up. Their end of the deal
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
Yep, people forget that Russia & China signed the deal to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. China was heavily against N. Korea developing nukes and the aftermath led to N. Korea shifting towards Russia. No one with nukes wants other nations to have nukes, especially tiny nations that aren't currently threats who are quite unstable.
Wolfgang_Pow@reddit
"especially tiny nations that aren't currently threats who are quite unstable."
What about Israel 🤔
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
The US didn't want Israel to have nukes, France did.
Wolfgang_Pow@reddit
"Israel is probably the only nation in the world with nukes that may actually be forced to use them to stay alive."
What about North Korea? 🤔
Mind you North Korea is a more stable and peaceful nation than Israel which is saying something.
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
The only scenario N. Korea would need nukes is against China. They have enough artillery to demolish Seoul without nukes. Thus I don't see it as plausible they'll ever be forced to use them.
dasunt@reddit
Israel gave up some of the lands it occupied in the 1967 war, specifically the Sinai peninsula.
It kept the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Golan Heights.
I'll note that it gave Egypt back the Sinai peninsula in 1982, as part of the 1979 peace treaty, and peace has remained between those two nations. So it's a bit disingenuous to imply otherwise.
Israel/Syrian relations have historically been much more rocky, but no land from 1967 was returned to Syria until after the 1973 war. I believe Israel gave a bit of the territory back in '73.
Jordan normalized relations with Israel in the 1990s, and gave up its claims on the West Bank in the late 1980s, as part of an effort to encourage Israeli/PLO peace. I believe that currently, Jordan and Israeli relations are pretty good, with Jordan helping defend Israel from Iranian retaliation a few years ago.
Nuance helps find a path forwards to peace.
NetworkLlama@reddit
I've always seen Jordan giving up claims on the West Bank as a somewhat cynical move to offload a troublesome region on the Israelis. Palestinians were unhappy (to say the least) about Jordan annexing the West Bank, and nothing the Jordanian government could do would ever make them happy. King Abdullah was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951, and after Black September in 1970, in which the PLO came uncomfortably close to toppling the royal family and taking over, the Jordanian government had zero interest in managing a Palestinian population anywhere. Holding on to the West Bank also prevented badly needed government reforms in Jordan from happening because members of parliament from the West Bank would block them from happening. So while it technically laid the groundwork for a two-state solution, it was also dumping a whole lot of problems in someone else's lap, albeit after almost 40 years of pain and 18 years after the biggest crisis.
dasunt@reddit
That would require Jordan to believe that the Israelis wouldn't commit to a two-state solution.
If the Israelis did commit, that would leave the West Bank as a failed state in this scenario where Jordan believes that the Palestinians would always resort to violence.
I'm not sure how foreseeable that was in that era. This wasn't too far off from the era of Rabin, and Rabin was very much working towards a two-state solution - so much so that he was later assassinated by a far-right religious extremist for the Oslo accords.
It's kind of sad to think of the possible future we'd be living in if Likud and their ideological kin was effectively neutered at the time, and we could have an effective PA.
NetworkLlama@reddit
I agree with most of that. Back then, it seemed reasonable that a two-state solution was maybe a few years away. But Jordan had already expelled the PLO soon after Black September, would expel even more Palestinians later, and never significantly trusted the remaining population.
I think a lot more about Arafat when considering what could be now. Had he accepted the deal worked out at the 2000 Camp David summit, history could have taken a very different path.
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
Yes though it did eventually give Gaza and the West Bank freedom. They held free elections and elected Hamas (the US and others strongly discussed intervening when they did and likely made a mistake by respecting their election). Also to note Egypt and Jordan didn't really want them back, especially later on...they were worried about terrorism as both had faced Palestinian religious extremists that tried to overthrow their governments.
I-Here-555@reddit
Technically, this is not proliferation, as North Korea already has nukes. However, nuclear powered submarines are a serious increase in delivery capabilities, allowing them to basically target any place on Earth with no advance notice. Pretty much nobody wants that, not even Russia.
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
To note, diesel subs do the job too, nuclear subs just are better at long deployments. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan both send subs off the coast of N. America to raid shipping.
I-Here-555@reddit
Good point, but note that diesel submarines that can launch nuclear missiles are fairly rare. There's Golf class which NK doesn't have.
Presumably detection technology (and coverage) has improved as well. Diesel engines are loud, don't run fully submerged and battery range is still limited, given how vast the Pacific is and that the US is certainly watching exit routes from NK.
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
The German 212CD and Korean KSS-III that are both in consideration for our next sub (Canadian here) can field missiles but yes not nuclear missiles. That being said what the missile hitting the building your leaders are in is carrying really doesn't matter that much dead is dead. Also the Korean KSS-III can theoretically fire nuclear ballistic missiles if they designed a missile that can fit and had nuclear warheads since they have the modular vertical ballistic launch system already. Likely the 212CD can too though the warheads would be smaller I believe.
Diesel subs can run fully submerged but yes battery range while doing so is limited.
TachiH@reddit
North Korea has nuclear weapons, this wouldn't be proliferation? From "large manhole covers" it does make me wonder if it was reactor vessels for reactors.
I doubt Russia can afford to do this to themselves though.
theoreoman@reddit
If you have a nuclear reactor you can turn uranium into plutonium, a plutonium nuke is much easier to build
TachiH@reddit
But they have nukes. 2 is enough for them to do what they want, which is not be at risk of invasion.
I would argue NK are safer with nukes than the countries who are constantly in wars like India, Pakistan and Israel.
Ok_Currency_617@reddit
N. Korea doesn't need nukes except to deal with small penis syndrome. They have a crap load of artillery in mountain fortresses with Seoul in range. Realistically the only nation that has a chance of taking over N. Korea is China.
Gumb1i@reddit
Doesn't even have to be that convoluted, Russia could have sank it themselves to cover up the fact they failed to deliver in the first place as in they never produced the nuclear power plants at all or never intended to ship them.
kardianaxel@reddit
Chances are, the oligarch who skimmed this project has already hit the pavement too
Gumb1i@reddit
Russian windows are dangerous apex predators.
kardianaxel@reddit
Probably not the OS they wanted...
I took myself seriously and went looking for a bit. The article mentions VM-4SG reactors, a type that were spotted on satellite images. Those reactors DO NOT use the type of composite materials produced by Rosatom's "Umatex" company, which lost it's CEO Alexandet Tyunin via suicide in 2025.
But AI says newer reactor designs do use materials from Umatex. Go figure.
Freethecrafts@reddit
How about Russia is no longer capable of making what they sold to North Korea?
aykcak@reddit
This is the ship that sank like 3 years ago? Why is it in the news now?
I saw CNN pushing this in YouTube too. Why is there an urge to pull up this story now after all this time?
blankedblank@reddit
Because Ukraine’s currently drowning in a massive corruption scandal, plus a huge PR disaster triggered by Zelensky’s former press secretary. So now they urgently need to whip up another loud ‘Russia is losing’ media narrative to distract everyone.
SP00KYF0XY@reddit
Shhh it's alright my boy, there is no shame in admitting that your performance in war has been "behind expectations" and you aren't close to victory after 4y of fighting. We all have our delusions, when I was 15 I also thought I was a very tough gangsta rapper, before I grew out of it. You will also become older and wiser, trust me. ;)
blankedblank@reddit
Was that intended as a jab at my national pride? It feels a bit ironic coming from an Austrian. If anyone should understand this, it would be an Austrian, that tying one’s sense of national dignity to military achievements is a questionable idea.
Thanks for the update, I suppose. Still not entirely clear what I was supposed to do with this information, but alright
TheBigOof96@reddit
Seems like it was more of a jab at your unfathomable levels of copium.
SP00KYF0XY@reddit
Wait, who blocked you? The Russian whose comments got deleted?
omgmajk@reddit
They aren't deleted, they blocked you too.
SP00KYF0XY@reddit
Ah alright. I know that comments disappear if someone deletes their account, block you or get removed by mods, but I don't know if you yourself can see what happened.
blankedblank@reddit
Says the guy commenting under a three-year-old news story about a sunken civilian vessel…
Seriously, did you all go to the same school for the intellectually gifted or something? You probably had dreams of being a gangster rapper too, but that didn’t quite pan out either, did it?
SP00KYF0XY@reddit
Did you know my beloved Österreich is on tenth place concerning alcohol consumption while Russland is on spot 142? Our booze is much better than what y'all have. That I'm proud of. Prost! ;)
blankedblank@reddit
According to WHO data, the average Austrian consumes 12.0 liters of alcohol and is ranked 184th, compared to 11.7 liters per Russian (164th place). Looks like someone forgot to sort the Wikipedia table, lmao. But please, keep embarrassing yourself...
SP00KYF0XY@reddit
[Doubt.] Granted it's from 2019, when the world was more beautiful, but still. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita)
blankedblank@reddit
lmao, wrong. Looks like someone outsourced their brain to a chatbot. Embarrassing
Maybe_this_time_fr@reddit
I support Ukraine but you need to shut the fuck up because you definitely aren't older and wiser.
kapuh@reddit (OP)
It is not news.
News is the short stuff.
This is the long stuff.
With details and things.
GrAdmThrwn@reddit
This post is three years late lol. The fact that this sloppily written CNN piece is all of a sudden somehow getting so much traction is much more interesting and indicative than the topic of the article itself.
kapuh@reddit (OP)
Man, you are not even able to recognize the type of journalism you are consuming, where do you take the arrogance from to call it "sloppily"?
GrAdmThrwn@reddit
Did you even read it?
From the opening paragraph to the final conclusion, it literally says nothing of real consequence of value. The only useful thing that could be called journalism was including its course.
But I'm happy to defend my point here. Lets start from the top, just in case you feel like dragging this out unnecessarily.
"A Russian cargo ship likely carrying two nuclear reactors for submarines, possibly destined for North Korea, suffered a series of explosions and sank in unexplained circumstances, about 60 miles off the coast of Spain, a CNN investigation has found."
That is the opening paragraph.
"Likely", "possibly" "unexplained".
Ok. These are fine. Silly, for an apparently serious piece of journalism, but occasionally some suspense is nice to hook people in, promising the catharsis of a definitive answer or conclusion. Except the article doesn't actually answer any of these. There is no smoking gun, just a hole. No one concludes anything, no one comments, not even the Spanish Investigation, the only interesting thing that happens is that the Investigation suggests it might have been a torpedo and that CNN "might" have obtained blurry images of white and blue objects that "might" have ended up on the ship which departed two weeks after said image was taken.
I'll stand by the appparent arrogance of my statement. The journalism is sloppy and even if it wasn't, its old news and nothing came of it, so it is even less relevant.
kapuh@reddit (OP)
The hedging language is there because every party that knows the answer is classified up to their eyeballs. That's not sloppy journalism, that's how covert operations work.
This is not some Netflix show where a journalist joins the CIA to dive to a wreck and unwrap an international conspiracy. Do you kids even know what real journalism is?
Also: there's plenty in the article that needs zero hedging:
the Russian captain confessed to Spanish police that the cargo was nuclear reactor components.
The Ivan Gren, a Russian military ship, fired flares over a civilian vessel in distress in Spanish waters and it sank shortly after.
The Yantar then parked over the wreck for five days, after which four more explosions were detected on the seabed.
The US sent a WC-135R nuke sniffer, an aircraft normally reserved for monitoring Russian Arctic nuclear tests, over the site. Twice. The hull had a 50x50cm hole with the metal bent inward.
Also the ship was sailing from one Russian port to another Russian port. Via the Atlantic.
With 129 empty containers.
Russia has a railway for that.
"Nothing came of it" is doing a lot of heavy lifting when Russia literally sent a spy ship to blow up the evidence.
...but you'd know all that if you'd have read the article.
SlyRoundaboutWay@reddit
Why would a ship transiting from St Petersburg to Vladivostok or North Korea, be off the coast of Spain? Seems like a super long detour. Unless they were loading/unloading cargo off the Spanish coast.
Loonytalker@reddit
Mediterranean to the Red Sea by the Suez canal to the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Quickest route without using massive icebreakers at just the right time of year to go through the Arctic ocean.
SlyRoundaboutWay@reddit
The quickest route would be a train.
TheRicFlairDrip@reddit
The fastest route would actually be airplane
technicallyiminregs@reddit
Sure if you can find an airplane big enough to put an entire preassembled nuclear reactor I guess
historicusXIII@reddit
There was such a plane in Ukraine, but the Russians blew it up in 2022.
duncandun@reddit
y'all are seriously underestimating how large a sub reactor is lol
BroMan001@reddit
Not big enough
SlyRoundaboutWay@reddit
True that
hiddentalent@reddit
Yes, but trains are limited in load size to a little over ten feet/3 meters and submarine nuclear reactors are around 30-40 feet/10-12 meters. You can't fit them any aircraft or train, except those what they call industrial short-line trains that get super large things from the assembly facility to the port (or launch pad).
And you can't break a reactor down and assemble it on-site like many other industrial machines.
So, boat it is.
Brillegeit@reddit
Why don't they just use the An-225? :*(
hiddentalent@reddit
It had the carrying capacity needed, but its cargo hold was only 6.5 meters wide, as opposed to the 40 meters needed. Nuclear reactors aren't small.
Brillegeit@reddit
Just put it on the roof rack!
But my post was more of a kick towards the Russians for the demise of that plane.
clayt0n@reddit
So they assembled the reactors near an harbor, put it on some trucks. Loaded it on a ship and let it take a route around spain?
No, they could've done the same in North Korea or near the border.
This doesnt make sense.
Czart@reddit
Yes, probably in the same facilities they use for their own nuclear submarines?
NetworkLlama@reddit
There are facilities all over the world that have short train tracks with specialized cars that travel only a few kilometers from a factory or processing plant to the dock. It would be impractical to alter thousands of kilometers of railways for the rare times that they get used.
hiddentalent@reddit
It makes complete sense?
Do you think the factories that make these things are scattered around Russia or easily moved? No, they're from the Soviet era and the Soviets built them next to their submarine shipyards in northern Russia. That's the only place the capacity exists to build them. And they didn't put them on "trucks," they are far too large for that. They are put on short range large industrial trains or massive vehicles like the (Nasa Crawler)[https://share.google/BLZq9tTmv9oRH7xqG] to move from the factory to the nearby shipyard.
_Baphomet_@reddit
Love me some nucleae logistics knowledge.
kolitics@reddit
Train has to pass through China with nuclear reactors.
ausmomo@reddit
Your question was "Why would a ship transiting from St Petersburg to Vladivostok or North Korea, be off the coast of Spain? "
I-Here-555@reddit
Where do you imagine they could go? Under the polar ice? From some Black Sea port within range of Ukrainian naval drones?
Salinne@reddit
XD
MarderFucher@reddit
Good. More should follow. More must follow. Total Shadow Fleet Death. More suspicious attacks against russian assets. More sabotage. More disappearances. More mysterious fires and explosions.
Azzagtot@reddit
What is "Shadow Fleet"?
Brave-Battle-2615@reddit
Old decrepit ships set to be sold for scrap are bought by a 3rd party on behalf of a nation undergoing sanctions, in order to spoof their nationality while transporting goods to break said sanctions.
Kinda like you having Chad as your location, they lie in attempt to gain access to markets they shouldn’t, so you should sorta understand it.
Punsh117@reddit
Or like you with your "Russia" flair?
BigDictionEnergy@reddit
Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme
Azzagtot@reddit
So, nothing to do with reality, got it.
goofygodzilla93@reddit
It's a widely known technique of Russia and China, just because you don't agree with facts doesn't mean it's wrong.
Brave-Battle-2615@reddit
Well said my friend
NetworkLlama@reddit
Shadow fleet ships use rotating names, fraudulent ship registrations and even ship registries (Micronesia doesn't have a registry, but over 150 ships fly its flag); false or disabled transponder signals; and questionable insurance documentation to hide their true identities and purposes and make recovery of damages effectively impossible. These have been used to skirt sanctions (Iran, North Korea, Russia are big examples), to harvest fish above quotas or from protected areas (China, Indonesia, India, Russia, Iran), and to enter protected waters to save fuel (too many to list) while avoiding safety inspections.
They not only violate the law, they place extreme risks on the environments and are responsible for the stranding of thousands of sailors over the years, some of whom go months (or longer) without pay on dangerously outdated and unmaintained vessels and are at risk of arrest, injury, or death from their working conditions.
WitchesSphincter@reddit
I feel shadow fleets are the modern interpretation of letters of Marquee. Just enough to say the country isn't involved.
NetworkLlama@reddit
Letters of marque are not about plausible deniability. They are, in fact, meant to show that a given country authorized the actions of the ship. If a vessel is captured, the captain is supposed to present the letter. This should prevent the crew from being charged with piracy, and instead place them under military jurisdiction, which might well treat them as prisoners of war unless there were indications that they engaged in forbidden actions, including but not limited to piracy.
WitchesSphincter@reddit
Thanks, I apparently know less about they period of history than I thought.
NetworkLlama@reddit
They weren't guarantees. They were more like affirmative defenses. "Yes, we attacked your ships, but we had permission from a power with whom you are in conflict." I don't know how often they worked, and there were multiple treaties between at least England and France that were supposed to prohibit them, so I can imagine that some bearers were tried and executed anyway.
TheRicFlairDrip@reddit
So you agree that russia should sink random european ships then?
MarderFucher@reddit
I am in support of russia trying to escalate in Europe kinetically so they can get their nose bashed in.
lowrads@reddit
I've been reading about all the limpet mines being placed on various governmental and civilian vessels, particuarly in the Persian gulf during all the interwar years, and it is fascinating. Most of this clandestine stuff was never covered by the corporate media.
Trollimperator@reddit
If Trump wasnt in office, this would be a huge talking point. This is nuclear proliferation, the USA should fight with everything they got, to prevent NK to nuclear subs. A NK nuclear sub, parked near the west coast would be magnitutes worse than any threat Iran could become. We live in crazy times with idiots at the helm.
Kaymish_@reddit
The DPRK is already a nuclear power, it's just trade in military technology, and because The DPRK is already a nuclear power it's actually less objectionable than the USA and UK doing the same thing for Australia under their AUKUS framework. (Assuming the USA ever delivers those submarines.)
Emu1981@reddit
You are conflating nuclear weapons with nuclear powered submarines. The DPRK has nuclear weapons but they do not have nuclear submarines that could take those nuclear weapons close to their adversaries. Australia does not have any nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines will only really serve as a defensive measure to harass any armies trying to sail their way down to Australia to invade.
The AUKUS framework has it's fair share of issues but Australia having nuclear powered submarines is the least of them.
Trollimperator@reddit
Listen, i dont want to insult you or anything bad really. But saying, that NK is a nuclear power and therefor helping them with delievery system for nuclear barrages is the same as giving a delievery system to an allied, friendly, not at war nation, which doesnt has nukes to begin with. Thats kind of stretching it into bullshit territory.
The last time i checked, the USA didnt make AUKUS a clandestine operation. Hell, even China is likely more opposed to Russia arming NK with nuclear subs, then the USA cooperating with the roo-fckers.
Kaymish_@reddit
So basically you have a double standard. Because it's the DPRK and the Russian Federation it's bad, but the USA and Australia doing pretty much the same thing is fine really. So should Russia fight with everything to prevent nuclear powered submarines from being delivered to Australia? No then why should the USA fight the same thing but reversed?
Trollimperator@reddit
Ivan, i told you the difference. I can fix you. So think for yourself if you can.
aykcak@reddit
Trump wasn't in office . It was a news item but not really a big focus because most of the world was busy with other things like Israels genocide, U.S. (and other countries) general elections, Netenyahu being charged by human rights courts, martial law in Korea and more
Trollimperator@reddit
Oh, you think there were news about this being nuclear reactors being shipped to NK? Do you have any links that mentioned that in 2024? Because this is the first day i hear about this. And for this seems to be a "Cuba Crisis level" event.
aykcak@reddit
The only thing new is the discussion about possible nuclear reactors. I don't remember anything about that but it does not seem too important anyway, I might have missed it in 2024 or it might be new information.
And yes, if you look at the Wikipedia page of it and the news pages linked, all the details about the ship, it's possible destination, who it belongs to and who possibly sunk it is there
Adorable-Database187@reddit
SuperKiller94@reddit
Seems legit.
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