NATO issues a warning to its partners following the disappearance of the Russian submarine Doomsday.

In response to the loss of the Russian submarine Doomsday, NATO issues a warning to its allies.

NATO warned its members that Russian President Vladimir Putin "may have deployed a massive nuclear submarine, carrying destructive nuclear tsunami-capable weapons" and flooding coastal cities.

The Belgorod nuclear submarine, often known as the doomsday submarine, 

one of the world's largest, disappeared from its main base in the Arctic.

This means that the submarine may be on its way to the Kara Sea to test the nuclear bomb carried by Poseidon, according to a NATO warning note leaked to Italian media over the weekend.

NATO informed allies that the submarine had vanished

but said the submarine was "still believed to operate in the Arctic", according to the British Daily Mail.

It was unclear exactly when the warning was sent, but the Italian newspaper La Repubblica first reported it on Sunday.

Why Belgorod?

• The nuclear submarine has a firepower capable of erasing entire cities

• as well as huge tsunami capabilities at sea

• enabling it to destroy coastal cities and make them unviable.

Its weapon is embodied in 6 Poseidon nuclear torpedoes (nuclear missiles)

which are all the size of a school bus.

1. Bilgorod has been operating since last July
2. and can stay 120 days underwater
3. without having to return to the surface.

The submarine carries Poseidon :

a weapon that takes the form of a remote marching vehicle, capable of traveling underwater long distances, up to approximately 9650 km underwater.

The vehicle is used to detonate a nuclear warhead installed in the front

with a power of 2 megatons, more than 130 times the size of the bomb thrown at Hiroshima.

This would lead to a radioactive tsunami of up to 487 metres, designed to flood coastal cities and leave them on the ground of nuclear waste.

Is this scenario in progress?

Observers have questioned if these stories are accurate.

or at least the viability of using Belgorod at this time, for a number of reasons:

The submarine, which is approximately 183 metres long, is one of the world's largest, and therefore its undetected access to the Baltic Sea is extremely difficult.

It is unclear whether there is sufficient time for Belgorod to move from its main base in the White Sea to the Baltic Sea, about 4,800 kilometres away, without noting its absence.

The warhead has never been tested.

because of the international ban on nuclear weapons testing.

1. Breaking these treaties by testing Poseidon
2. even in remote waters in the Arctic
3. would be a provocative move by Russia.

News of the potential test comes amid a Russian rant over the use of nuclear weapons linked to Ukraine's war, where Western weapons supplies have hampered Russian troops from achieving the objectives they seek in their war against Ukraine.