But the most interesting news came in the aftermath, as Pavel Felgengauer, a military analyst, noted in his recent publication in Russian Novaya Gazeta.

Sergey Ivanov, Russian defence minister, reported to the Russian President Vladimir Putin that along with ballistic milssile submarines, there were three nuclear multi purpose submarines out at sea. " Per today [September 10th] there are five stratigic and three multi purpose submarines on combat patrol, but each one of them carries nuclear weapon," Ivanov said in excitment.

Did Ivanov mean that? After all Ivanov has no military background, he comes from the KGB. If he indeed ment that, then Russia, by the words of its defence minister, has admitted that it violates international agreements.

Back in October 1991, President Gorbachev supported the initiative of President Bush to reduce the tactical nuclear weapon. In January 1992, President Yeltsin confirmed and extended the initiative. The agreement between the USA and Russia, later joined by the UK, stipulated the removal of a number of land based nuclear weapon, removal of all the non-stratigic nuclear weapons from ships and demolitioning of 1/3 of it. The rest were placed into onshore storage facilities.

When the Kursk, a cruise missile submarine, sank in 2000, the speculations that it carried nuclear weapons were denied with the reference to the 1992 agreement.

Today the nukes are back onboard all the nuclear submarines, per Ivanov. Handy for the war on terror?