A joint Russian-Norwegian team of researchers has taken new seawater samples from around the wreck of the sunken Soviet Project 685 nuclear-powered submarine K-278 Komsomolets, one of which was 100,000 times more radioactive than uncontaminated water. The findings raise concerns that the boat is now actively leaking radiation, either from its reactor or a pair of nuclear-armed torpedoes, after sitting at the bottom of the Barents Sea for more than three decades. This news comes nearly two weeks after a top-secret Russian nuclear submarine suffered a fire that killed 14 sailors, though the Kremlin says this incident did not result in any radiation leaks and that it was able to safely recover the vessel.News of the test results first broke in Norwegian media on July 8, 2019. The research team aboard the Norwegian research ship G.O. Sars, which Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and the country’s University of Bergen operate jointly, had employed the Norwegian-designed Ægir 6000 deep-d...
