Russia to Complete Infrastructure for Poseidon Torpedo Carriers in 2024

File photo: The first Poseidon ammunition loads have been manufactured, and the Belgorod submarine will receive them in the near future (AFP)
File photo: The first Poseidon ammunition loads have been manufactured, and the Belgorod submarine will receive them in the near future (AFP)
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Russia to Complete Infrastructure for Poseidon Torpedo Carriers in 2024

File photo: The first Poseidon ammunition loads have been manufactured, and the Belgorod submarine will receive them in the near future (AFP)
File photo: The first Poseidon ammunition loads have been manufactured, and the Belgorod submarine will receive them in the near future (AFP)

Russia plans to complete in early 2024 the construction of its coastal infrastructure in the Pacific Ocean for basing nuclear submarines that will carry the Poseidon nuclear capable super torpedoes, TASS news agency reported on Monday.

Russia said in January that it had produced the first set of the Poseidon torpedoes, four years after President Vladimir Putin announced the fundamentally new type of strategic nuclear weapon, confirming it would have its own nuclear power supply, Reuters said.

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.

The torpedoes are being developed for deployment on the Belgorod and Khabarovsk nuclear submarines, TASS reported.

"Work on the construction of coastal infrastructure facilities for basing two special submarines in Kamchatka is planned to be completed early next year," TASS cited an unidentified defence source as saying.

Russia Pacific Fleet's ballistic nuclear missile submarine base is located on the southeastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East.

The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the Kamchatka Peninsula's eastern and western coastlines.

The source told the TASS state agency that a new division is being formed as part of the Submarine Forces of the Pacific Fleet, which will include not only Belgorod and Khabarovsk but also other submarines.

The new special-purpose submarines will participate in solving the tasks "of strategic deterrence", the source said.

Russia's major upgrade of the nuclear base comes amid rising US-China tensions over influence in the Western Pacific.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Moscow is not creating a military alliance with Beijing, but both he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged closer ties, including in the military sphere, during their meeting last week.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.