Free Republic

You may have never heard of Vasili Arkhipov. And yet life as we know it on this planet could have ended if it were not for his crucial intervention during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Born in 1926, Arkhipov saw action as a minesweeper during the Soviet-Japanese war in August 1945. Two years later he graduated from the Caspian Higher Naval School, serving in the Black Sea and Baltic submarine fleets – just in time for the start of the Cold War, which would stay with him for the rest of his service. During the 1950s the Soviets became very...

Sunken Soviet sub needs buyer -- or it's scrapped PROVIDENCE, R.I.—A former Soviet cruise missile submarine that was once featured in a Hollywood film and sank in the Providence River during a storm last year will be converted to scrap metal if no one agrees to buy it, the president of the foundation that owns it said Wednesday. The 282-foot submarine, also known as Juliett 484, began serving as a floating educational museum in 2002, until it went down during a powerful nor'easter in April 2007. Army and Navy dive crews raised the sub in a training exercise last July,...

MOSCOW - A Russian nuclear-powered submarine sank in the Barents Sea on Saturday morning as it was being towed to a scrapyard, killing at least two of the 10 sailors on board, the Defense Ministry said. The two nuclear reactors of the 40-year-old K-159 was shut down at the time of the sinking at about 4 a.m. about 3 1/2 miles northwest of Kildin Island, said the Navy's deputy chief, Adm. Viktor Kravchenko. No weapons were aboard. Rescue ships of the Northern Fleet reached the accident site within an hour in heavy rain. One sailor was rescued, the bodies of...

The presentation of the American blockbuster “K-19. The Widowmaker” is over. The movie starring Harrison Ford has been shown in cinemas across Russia. It seems that almost all Russian and Soviet submariners accept the certain rough edges of its plot. The word “almost” is an important in this sentence. The controversy continues.