Is Russia in the process of covering up a nuclear accident after a confirmed spike in radiation levels in the aftermath of a reported rocket engine explosion at a northern testing facility Thursday? Authorities confirmed the accident involved an “isotope power source for a liquid-fuelled rocket engine”.

Russia's state nuclear agency has said five of its staff members were killed at a military testing site in northern Russia, reportedly when the liquid propellant rocket engine exploded during tests on a sea platform. Some reports say it may have involved a top secret weapon that was part of Moscow's hypersonic arsenal. Russia is pursuing hypersonic missiles as a nuclear deterrent, as Putin himself has recently verbalized.

Other staff were being treated for serious burns after the accident; however, as Reuters reported, there's a run on iodine (used to reduce the effects of radiation exposure) in the northern port cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk, near where the mystery accident occurred.

That was just one accident. An earlier one occurred a few days earlier at an arms depot:

Thursday's mystery incident came two days after 16,500 people fled their homes when a separate immensely powerful series of blasts rocked an arms depot in Siberia, which had been caught in dramatic footage.

It's tempting to look at this story as a local one, a story of the old Russian failure to be transparent in nuclear matters, something the Soviets were guilty of during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 and in theit terrible nuclear accidents in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Don't these guys ever learn? Does everything have to be a secret when the fallout is raining down on the citizens? It's sad.

But actually, it's something perhaps more disturbing: The accidents may be a sign of a let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may, balls-to-the-wall, reckless nuclear weapons expansion. Haste makes waste. And who the heck is threatening them, why do they need to do this? Why this nuclear expansion? This news comes not long after President Trump cancelled a nuclear weapons treaty with Russia because the Russians had ceased observing its agreements. Obviously, some kind of buildup seems to be the story. When buildups go fast, accidents happen. And that may well affect us, raising questions again about Hillary Clinton's sales of uranium to the Russians back when she was Secretary of State during the Obama administration.

Note that in the Durden report, the Russians say the accident happened on a sea platform.

Sea platform? Like, sea warfare?

What a coincidence - the Russians just happen to have set up a floating nuclear plant that is scaring Alaska. Look at this KTUU local news report out of Anchorage, Alaska, done by the Associated Press the other, which hasn't made the news in the Lower 48 yet:

A Russia-designed floating nuclear power plant has begun its journey through the Arctic this month causing concerns in Alaska. Alaska Public Media reports that the 472-foot barge launched in St. Petersburg, Russia and will continue along the coast to the Bering Strait separating Alaska. Russia officials say the plan is to dock the world's first floating nuclear power plant at Pevek, Russia about 1,250 miles from Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska advocates say they are concerned about potential radiation the barge could produce in the northwest region.

It is indeed scary, given that Russia is having nuclear accidents on its own territory. One doesn't quite see the same delicateness of sensibility toward Alaska's green priorities from the Russians as the greenies of Alaska might require. The other thing is, maybe the Russians wanted this to seem like a threat. If so, they succeeded.

Here's a third thing that's inevitably going to be raised from this: Was this Russian nuclear buildup and the new emerging threats coming to Alaska aided by all that uranium Hillary Clinton made available to them and their Kazakh allies, back when the uranium sales were approved? What became known as the Uranium One scandal involved 20% of the U.S. uranium supply approved for sale to Russia and its allies. While it's true that U.S. uranium is not for export, there are ways of getting around export controls, and commodities can be quite fungible, which is why the export controls are there in the first place. Clinton sat on a board that signed off on the whole thing. Even if the aim wasn't to get hold of uranium itself (Kazakhstan has oodles of it, they probably don't "need" America's), it's also possible that the aim was to keep the U.S. from developing its nuclear capabilities in counterweight to a Russian rush toward more nukes, a plan to buy the assets and sit on them.

The news is sketchy for now, and the dots are not completely connected, but you can bet the CIA and National Security Agency are looking at this, and they should. The public though, should also be made aware that Russia is moving with some kind of breakneck speed to develop nukes, they're making a mess, and they're scaring Alaska now. Hillary Clinton's uranium sales to the Russians during her term as Secretary of State might just have something to do with this very bad trajectory.

Image credit: Ruptly (Russian government) screen shot, via shareable YouTube video