Russia's military is preparing to retrieve two nuclear submarines resting at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, according to a Russian newspaper.
Quoting an unnamed military source, Izvestia reported Thursday that the Defense Ministry will announce an international tender to recover the vessels, which would require deep-sea salvage equipment the country does not possess. The Cold-War era submarines are known as B-159 – resting 790 feet deep in the Barents Sea – and K-27 – an experimental attack submarine scuttled in 1982 and resting 220 feet below the Kara Sea.
The long-decommissioned B-159 sank in a storm while being towed to a shipyard in 2003. The accident killed nine sailors, and an estimated 1,760 pounds of spent fuel was on board, according to Russian news service Ria Novosti.
In 2010, Wired reported the Russian Federation had hired Scottish firm Adus to produce a high-resolution sonar survey of B-159 to address the feasibility of recovering it.