Russia's defence ministry said a Bulava missile was launched on Wednesday (local time) by a nuclear submarine submerged in the White Sea and its third stage suffered an unspecified failure.
Photographs and amateur video footage of the bluish-white in the Norwegian skies have been circulating on the Internet since Wednesday. The ministry did not confirm that these lights were the result of the failed launch but military analysts said the lights were clearly a result from explosion of the Bulava.
This kind of light show comes from a failed missile launch," said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst. "Russia has run free fireworks for the Norwegians."
The botched launch was the twelfth test of the Bulava and its eighth failure, which deals another blow to Kremlin's hopes that the sea-based weapon would become a cornerstone of its nuclear arsenal.
"They will have to spend quite a long time trying to make it working," said Alexander Konovalov, the head of the Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Assessment. "That is fraught with very negative consequences, up to the loss of the sea-based component of the Russian nuclear forces," he said.
The ministry said that a government commission was looking into the possible reasons behind the test failure.
