Things, perhaps, become clearer, and would seem to support my hypothesis at #38.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/se...-after-missile
..........After the fatal explosion,
port authorities in Arkhangelsk informed all civilian vessels on the Dvina River basin and in the White Sea that the waters north of Nenoksa is closed-off to shipping for the coming month. One ship, though, stayed at anchor inside the close area for more than 30 hours until it slowly started to move Friday afternoon: the special radiological service vessel “
Serebryanka”.
“
Serebryanka” has been at anchor a few nautical miles north of Nenoksa since before the explosion Thursday morning.
The ship belongs to Rosatomflot and is normally at port at the base for nuclear-powered icebreakers in Murmansk. In the 1980s and very early 90s, “
Serebryanka” was used to transport liquid radioactive waste from the Atomflot facility in Murmansk to dedicated dumping areas in the Barents Sea. In recent years, the ship has transported liquid radioactive waste from Atomflot to a treatment facility in Severodvinsk, as well as operated between Nerpa and Skhval naval yards on the Kola Peninsula and Atomflot in Murmansk. The ship has also transported containers with spent nuclear fuel from the closed-down naval base of Gremikha.
More interesting, the “
Serebryanka” was sailing the waters west of Novaya Zemlya at the time after it is believed that Russia carried out a flight test of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile (NATO name SSC-X-9 Skyfall) in November 2017.
As reported by
CNBC, the missile crashed and was lost at sea shortly after launch from the temporary facilities at Pankovo south of the Matochin Shar at Novaya Zemlya. According to
The Diplomat, “
Serebryanka” was likely taking part in the recovery operation last summer. The flight path starts at Pankovo, continues over shore for the first few seconds, then turn north over the waters at the inlet of the Matotchkin Shar dividing the northern and southern islands of Novaya Zemlya, before continuing towards the Sukhoy Nos, which is believed to be the impact area for the test, the
Barents Observer reported at the time.
The last test shooting of the Burevestnik missile at Pankovo took place in February 2018 and the facility was dismantled and shiped away during last summer. One problem, it appeared, was the presence of American WC-135 special-purpose aircraft frequently flying the easter Barents Sea close to Russian airspace. The WC-135’s mission is to collect samples from the atmosphere for the purpose of detecting and identifying radionuclides.
The White Sea area on the other hand, is Russian airspace. Since October 2018, satellite images show that a new construction has been erected at the Nenoksa test site, which resemble the facilities removed from Pankovo on Novaya Zemlya.
“
Serebryanka”, which left port in Murmansk towards the White Sea on August 4th, could have been in the area to either transport the missile or to pick it up from the sea after testing.
The Burevestnik missile is equipped with a small nuclear reactor. If the missile fuel that exploded at Nenoksa site happened while testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile which uses a propellant engine in the start, radioactivity could have been released from possible damages of the small reactor.........