Vladimir Putin has fired a nuclear torpedo capable of reducing vast coastlines to uninhabitable wasteland in a new test he hailed as a "huge success".

The Russian despot successfully tested the new weapon - versions of which the US and UK have in their vast nuclear arsenals - capable of causing radioactive tsunamis which could make entire coastlines uninhabitable. He said: “For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch the nuclear power unit on which this device passed a certain amount of time. There is nothing like this. This is a huge success."

Putin said the power of the torpedo, named Posideon, exceeded the Russian -developed Sarmat intercontinental missile, otherwise known as the SS-X-29, or, infamously,

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