Moscow claims to have manufactured first set of Poseidons.
The shipbuilders of Kremlin have produced a full set of atomic Poseidon torpedoes, which will be carried by the nuclear mega-submarine Belgorod, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Monday, citing an unidentified defence source.
"The first batch of Poseidon ammunition has been manufactured and will be soon delivered to special-purpose nuclear-powered submarine Belgorod," the source said.
The source claims that numerous experiments of the nuclear power unit and other key Poseidon underwater drone components were completed successfully.
TASS said the main components of Poseidon, including a nuclear reactor to give the torpedo its own power source, had been successfully completed. The crew of the Belgorod nuclear submarine has also completed tests with models of the torpedo, TASS said.
Since a grim New Year's Eve message describing the West as Russia's true enemy in the war on Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has sent several signals that Russia will not back down. He has dispatched hypersonic missiles to the Atlantic and appointed his top general to run the war, reported Reuters.
US and Russian officials have both described Poseidon as a new category of retaliatory weapon, capable of triggering radioactive ocean swells to render coastal cities uninhabitable.
Putin first announced what would become known as Poseidon in 2018, saying it was a fundamentally new type of strategic nuclear weapon, confirming it would have its own nuclear power supply.
There are few confirmed details about the Poseidon in the public domain, but it is essentially a cross between a torpedo and a drone which can be launched from a nuclear submarine.