On Sunday, the city of Sarov (Nizhny Novgorod Region) declared mourning in connection with the death of employees of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics. We are talking about five specialists who died on August 8 at the 45th State Central Marine Test Site of the Russian Navy near Nenoksa (Arkhangelsk Region) during tests of an unnamed missile, they will be buried in Sarov. In total, more than 10 people were injured in the emergency, there is no information about the condition of the five survivors.

Experts believe that one of the products, the development of which was first announced by Vladimir Putin in 2018, was being tested that day. According to Rosatom, the unnamed missile was being tested on a sea platform. However, after the tests were completed, the liquid engine fuel caught fire, leading to a detonation. The state corporation noted that the tragedy occurred due to a "confluence of factors," adding that this often happens when testing new technologies.

According to open data, the missile that was being tested used radioisotope sources - devices that use the energy released during radioactive decay to heat the coolant or convert it into electrical energy. Apparently, it was its partial destruction that led to the fact that on August 8 from 11.50 to 12.20 Moscow time, an increase in the radiation background of up to two microsieverts per hour was detected in the test area (with the established emergency response standard of 0.6 microsieverts). The specialists who were at the scene received a shock dose of radiation. This, apparently, explains the fact that the victims' clothes were burned on the spot; that the helicopters that delivered them to the special flight of the Ministry of Defense were examined by a specialist with a dosimeter before the start of transporting the victims; that the ambulances that delivered them, accompanied by military traffic police cars, to the S.P. Surikov Medical Biophysical Center. Burnazyan, were wrapped in film, and their drivers were dressed in chemical protection suits. The emergency area was closed to shipping for a month: this time is apparently needed to search for the remains of the missile and assess the material damage.

In Russia, dozens and hundreds of military programs are indeed being developed in secret, many of which fail during the first stages of testing. However, until recently, they did not pose any threat to the average person, who is used to seeing the achievements of the Russian defense industry exclusively on television. Created a new plane and it crashed? No big deal: conclusions will be drawn and everything will fall into place. Created a new tank and it fell apart when shot? They will conduct a defect analysis - and everything will be fixed. Launched a new ship and it sank? No big deal: the next one will sail for it too.

These are exaggerated examples, but the fact remains: no plane, tank or ship carries such a catastrophic potential for ordinary people as a nuclear weapon. The price of a mistake in this case can be fatal not only for specialists who know about the associated risks and voluntarily signed up for risky work, but also for thousands and millions of people who have nothing to do with experimental nuclear physics. Of course, the commission created to investigate the causes of the emergency in Nenoksa will draw its own conclusions (which are unlikely to be announced officially). But it is impossible to be 100% insured against a repeat of such an incident.

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