On June 14, a Georgian-language Facebook user, which disseminates false information regularly, published a post claiming that in 2014, tourists on Manhattan Beach witnessed a Russian submarine emerge from the water. According to the user, the US intelligence tracking systems cannot properly monitor the ocean, as evidenced by the entry of a Russian submarine into US waters. The post is accompanied by a photo in which people on the beach can be seen against the background of a submarine floating on the surface of the water. The photo creates the impression that these are people on Manhattan Beach who saw a Russian submarine very close to the shore.
In March 2021, the same information was broadcast in a video posted on the Russian-language YouTube channel “Sequential number,” claiming that on March 27, 2014, a Russian Borei-class nuclear-armed submarine surfaced just a few hundred meters away from Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The video emphasizes that the mainstream media was actively writing about the event.
The claim that a Russian nuclear submarine appeared in US territorial waters in March 2014, just a few hundred meters from Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, is without evidence and cannot be found in any reliable media. In addition, the photo of a submarine floating on the surface of the water can be searched on the Internet since 2006, long before 2014, and was actually taken on Yagrinskiy Beach in Severodvinsk, Russia.
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The information that a Russian nuclear submarine appeared a few hundred meters from Manhattan in 2014 cannot be found in reliable sources.
The YouTube channel “Sequential number” notes that the appearance of a Russian Borei-class nuclear-armed submarine in Manhattan was actively covered in the mainstream media; however, in fact, information that on March 27, 2014, a Russian submarine rose to the surface very close to the Statue of Liberty in Manhattan, is found in reliable sources. There are cases when Russian military reconnaissance ships and submarines have been spotted in the vicinity of the US coast, several tens and hundreds of kilometres away (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6); However, there are no reports about a Russian submarine appearing in territorial waters of the US (the coastal strip of the sea not exceeding 12 nautical miles wide).
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The published photo was not taken in Manhattan in 2014 but in Severodvinsk in 2005.
The photo attached to the Facebook post can be found on the Internet long before 2014, at least since 2006. The photo, in fact, depicts the Russian military production project 941 “Shark” in Severodvinsk in the summer of 2005. As it turns out, the said photo is part of a collage, because other angles of a similar photo can be found on the Internet as well.
The fact that the mentioned photo was taken in Severodvinsk is also evidenced by the argument that in one of the angles, the part of the boulevard running parallel to the beach exactly coincides with the boulevard of Yagrinskiy beach on Severodvinsk beach.
In addition, it should be noted that since 1939, Severodvinsk Machine-Building Plant, also known as “Sevmash”, is the largest shipbuilding enterprise in Russia and today it is the country’s only nuclear submarine manufacturer. Submarines produced by “Sevmash” often move right near Severodvinsk beach. This is evidenced by photos taken at different times and from different sides. For instance, one of the stories of Severodvinsk TV, which dates back to 2013, talks about about the exit of the submarine from the shipyard.
About the Source
The Facebook user “Malkaz Khabazi” regularly disseminates false information of anti-Western content. Fake news disseminated by the user has been debunked by “Myth Detector” a number of times.
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