UPDATE 11/12/15: The story generated quite a buzz, which is probably what the authors of this whole thing counted on. The consensus that is emerging from a number of discussions is that the "leak" was intentional. Moreover, a colleague who follow these things quite closely made a strong case that the "drone" on the slide is probably just an enlarged (and modified) image of a "regular" torpedo (such as UGST). This would explain the unusually large "combat module" and a number of other inconsistencies. However, the rest of the slide seems real - the submarines, the Zvezdochka ship, etc. Indeed, it is quite possible that the project is real as well - the Soviet Union did work on an underwater vehicle like this in the 1980s (here is an interesting story, although I would take it with a pinch of salt). Specifically, some work has been done on the vehicle's nuclear reactor. The project was abandoned, of course, but these things rarely die. In fact, NITI in Sosnovy Bor is building a new facility to test liquid metal-cooled naval reactors. It is probably not related to this drone, but who knows.
Still, the whole thing strikes me as crazy regardless of whether the project is real or not. If it is real, I find it quite appalling that the ideas of this kind ever reach the level of a discussion with the president. If it is an attempt of high-level trolling, it's even worse - if people in the Kremlin believe it was a clever way of sending some kind of a signal, they probably lost all their marbles.
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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
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