The chilling truth for the West is this – if Vladimir Putin presses a button, cities from London to New York could be horrifically turned to wasteland in minutes.

Deep inside Russia‘s military machine, the tyrant is quietly assembling an arsenal designed not to win a war in Europe, but to decimate whole nations at the push of a button. 

His scientists are racing ahead with a terrifying array of nuclear systems that sound closer to doomsday fiction than modern military reality.

They are building a suite of super weapons designed to frighten the world into caution – but these are not just bombs and missiles. 

They are nuclear-powered underwater drones, reactor-driven cruise missiles, hypersonic attack vehicles and even suspected space-based capabilities that American officials warn could, in the most extreme scenario, blind satellites and plunge modern societies into darkness in seconds. 

If Kremlin commanders are to be believed about their ‘Poseidon’ doomsday torpedo, a detonation would hurl a gigantic wall of irradiated seawater across coastal cities and naval bases in the West.

When unveiling a fresh test recently, Putin calmly declared there are no existing interception methods and ‘there is nothing like this’, as if announcing a new naval ship rather than a device capable of poisoning continents. 

For decades, Washington and Moscow relied on mutual deterrence and painstaking arms control treaties to ensure nobody crossed the line. Many treaties have been pushed aside or are totally dead, and military communication channels are strained. 

Russia is at war in Europe and has repeatedly rattled the nuclear sabre. 

And each time the Kremlin announces progress on one of its so-called invincible weapons, military officials and diplomats in the West exchange looks that say it plainly: the world is closer to nuclear peril than at any point since 1962. 

And the most chilling truth of all is that the machines Moscow says it has built are not stored away. They are being touted, tested and certified.

Perhaps the most alarming of all is a weapon Russia calls Poseidon. Western officials usually refer to it cautiously, stressing that hard performance data is not public.

But the broad contours are accepted because Putin himself has described them. Poseidon is a nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable underwater drone the size of a small submarine. 

Russian state media and officials have claimed it can travel thousands of miles underwater, guided by artificial intelligence, before detonating near enemy coastlines.

In theory, analysts say, such a blast could drive a massive radioactive surge inland, sending huge tsunami waves that could devastate cities. 

When Putin confirmed a Poseidon test late last month, he said Russia had launched it from a submarine and then activated the reactor that powers it. 

‘There is nothing like this,’ he told a group of military officials. ‘There is no way to intercept it.’ Some critics have said that Putin’s claim that it is impossible to be intercepted cannot be verified. 

But in nuclear strategy, perception is reality, and whether or not the system performs exactly as billed, its purpose is undeniable. It was developed as a response to the US’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. 

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev declared that Poseidon can be considered a true ‘doomsday weapon.’ 

Russian media commentators have suggested it could ‘drown Britain.’ Western analysts say such scenarios are likely exaggerated, but agree the concept itself is designed to terrify. It is said to be 20-24 metres long and about 2 metres in diameter.

Some experts point out that generating a continent-sweeping radioactive tsunami is scientifically uncertain. But others note that uncertainty is the point. 

If even a fraction of the horror described in Russian propaganda came to pass, coastal cities would be devastated, harbours contaminated, and land rendered toxic for years. 

 As if that was not enough, last Saturday, Putin unveiled his new terrifying nuclear submarine, which is built to carry Poseidon.

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