President Trump Orders Repositioning of Two Nuclear Subs After Medvedev Threatens U.S.
“In a late-night post, Trump confirmed he ordered two nuclear subs to deploy ‘in the appropriate regions’ after what he called foolish and inflammatory statements by Medvedev…The era of weakness is over”
By now you may have heard that in response to comments made earlier this week by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, President Trump did the following:
Trump deploying the nuclear subs pic.twitter.com/VWJwPqNkBJ
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 1, 2025
Fox News has the story: Trump repositions 2 nuclear submarines after ‘highly provocative’ Russian comments:
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he has “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions” following “highly provocative statements” made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev said earlier this week that Trump’s new deadline for Russia to end the conflict with Ukraine is an additional “step towards war.”
* * * *
There was no immediate response to Trump’s comments from Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Medvedev, now the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, cautioned that Trump’s announcement Monday that Russia must end the conflict with Ukraine in 10 to 12 days would not end well for the U.S.
“Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10… He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,” Medvedev said in a post on X on Monday. “Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!”
While Trump announced on July 14 that he would sign off on “severe tariffs” against Russia if Moscow failed to agree to a peace deal within 50 days, Trump said Monday that waiting that period of time was futile amid stalled negotiations.
“I’m going to make a new deadline, of about 10 — 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump told reporters from Scotland. “There’s no reason for waiting. It was 50 days. I wanted to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”
Apparently President Trump is not too happy with President Putin.
Fox News continues:
Trump’s remarks come as his frustration with Putin has grown in recent weeks amid no progress toward peace between Russia and Ukraine, and just a day after Russia launched more than 300 drones, four cruise missiles and three ballistic missiles into Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Trump also wrote on Truth Social Friday that “I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine.[“]
“Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH! Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly. They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025, and that number does not include their missing,” the president added. “Ukraine has also lost civilians, but in smaller numbers, as Russian rockets crash into Kyiv, and other Ukrainian locales. This is a War that should have never happened — This is Biden’s War, not ‘TRUMP’s.’ I’m just here to see if I can stop it!”
From a practical standpoint, I see this as a show of strength from President Trump, but not necessarily one with any immediate practical impact. Here’s why:
There are currently three types of subs in the U.S. inventory: (1) attack subs (SSNs) that carrying awesome anti-ship / anti-sub torpedoes and about 1-2 dozen conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles that have conventional 1,000 lb warheads; (2) ballistic missile (i.e. nuclear missile) subs (SSBNs) that carry a number of extremely long range missiles that potentially have a number of nuclear warheads in each missile; and (3) guided-missile subs (SSGNs), that are remodeled/revamped nuclear missile subs that now carry up to 154 conventional Tomahawk missiles, each with, as mentioned, a conventional 1,000 lb warhead.
Moving attack subs closer to Russia improves capability in the small, conventional strike role, but this is Russia we’re talking about. I’m not sure how much damage 1-2 dozen conventional Tomahawks are going to do to Russia, although they are very accurate missiles.
Moving nuclear ballistic missile subs closer to Russia is likely unnecessary as Google AI says that the Trident D-5 nuclear missile has a range of “4,600 statute miles.”
Moving a guided-missile sub closer gives better conventional capability (up to 154 conventional Tomahawks), but still, this is Russia.
On the other hand, President Trump didn’t say whether the subs being moved were in the Atlantic (closer to Moscow) or the Pacific (not so much), so that’s something to think about.
Another point is that U.S. attack subs have some surveillance capability. Again, from Google AI:
U.S. attack submarines possess robust surveillance capabilities, primarily relying on advanced sonar systems, photonics masts, and integrated systems like the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) [formerly known as SOSUS]. These technologies enable them to detect, track, and classify surface ships and submarines, gather intelligence, and project power ashore.
So maybe that is something the President and his team see as worth doing. In any case we’ll keep you up to date as this develops.
From X (there is a lot to this thread from Rod Martin — worth a read — not sure he gets everything right, but this is X):
2/ In a late-night post, Trump confirmed he ordered two nuclear subs to deploy “in the appropriate regions” after what he called “foolish and inflammatory statements” by Medvedev.
“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences.”
Indeed. pic.twitter.com/qtjzoQuXoY
— Rod D. Martin (@RodDMartin) August 1, 2025
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Comments
Thanks Skipper. This is just grandstanding by President Trump. The Russians know that boomers are always in position to inflict catastrophic damage on them. I like the reminder to them though. I suppose “In Position” basically means “In the water”.
I agree, although it is also true that when a weapon is launched very close to the target there is much less time for the enemy to defend himself and/or launch a counterstrike.
cant imagine any weapons to be used by the usa against russia even though the ukraine is proving that it can be done
why we havent shut down their finances and warning china not to continue to help the ussr or we’d pose harsh(er) sanctions on them
Because the EU is busy buying a trillion dollars of Russian oil and gas a year and they refuse to stop.
If I were Trump I’d dox all of Medvedev’s addresses both home and business on social media and mention those have been relayed to the repositioning subs.
Medvedev is a particular loathsome ass.
Our version of John Bolton.
A lot of people do not yet understand how formidable Trump is. Also, Putin has made nuclear threats, this means retribution will be so fast that their heads will spin.
Medvedev is a younger man than Putin and his age group so he has to talk this way to maintain his position for later. Expecting Putin to do anything about his war is a waste of time. Putin and Hamas are alike in that way.
Medvedev is Putin;s attack dog saying things Putin would like to but won’t because of his position. He is like a US VP running his mouth at the behest of the president but completely unable to back it up because he has no real power.
How detectable are American submarines? I worked on one aspect of this problem. I used to know a physicist (now dead) who visited Russia, both before and after the fall of the USSR. On one visit a physicist asked him who is the best expert on underwater acoustics? That’s an easy one: Walter Munk (died in 2019), professor of geophysics at Scripps at the University of California in La Jolla. I’m surprised the Russians didn’t know about Munk. Nevertheless it shows their early interest in submarine detection. Submarines traveling underwater create a surface effect known as the “Bernoulli hump.” The height of the hump increases with the square of the speed, and decreases with the square of the depth. So can a country detect submarines by laser from orbiting satellites or reconnaissance aircraft? Evidently yes, although the problem is difficult because of sea motion and wind waves. There are some esoteric statistical math involved which is where I came in. BTW the best book to learn about wind waves: “Wind Waves Their Generation and Propagation on the Ocean Surface” by Kinsman. Basic stuff but very important. The chapter on stochastic processes provides an excellent into to the subject.
So I suspect that the Russians have very good capabilities in this area as they have been working on it for decades. They also have very good mathematical talent. Our talent is fading. What would you expect now that many consider mathematics as “racist.”
Best way to track subs is by passive sonar. Ours is very good and our subs are very quiet. Russian subs used to be noisy until Clinton allowed the sale of advance milling machines to them. With that their subs got quieter.
We used to have a couple of lines of underwater sonar buoys for tracking subs. I assume Russia has the same but we have a geographical advantage in setting them up.
You can track subs by Magnetism but I don’t know at what distance. This is why we demag all out subs when they set out. Titanium isn’t magnetic but I’m unsure whether Russia’s new subs are titanium based.
Tou can attempt to pick up a sub with another sub when it leaves a port and then just trail it. That is probably what we do for Russian boomers. I don’t think our boomers are very trackable this way or at least they didn’t used to be.
There are a lot of ex-sub vets on here and they can probably comment more and better than I on this topic.
They are easy to track when you know in advance the directions of their crazy Ivans.
I saw that in a movie once with that twit Alex Baldwin and Sean Connery. I learned about crazy ivans and that russian submarine captains have scottish accents. it was a pretty enjoyable movie.
Russia has allowed the Navy it inherited from the Soviet Union to seriously degrade, as the Ukrainian War has demonstrated, and the Soviet tech was not on par with our stuff back then. While we are using mostly the same stuff as well, we have maintained or improved the existing tech.
Trump is engaging in Cold War tactics common to that era.
And all of our Navy’s submarines are nuclear powered and have been for decades, so we don’t really need to say “nuclear submarine” anymore.
I’ll worry about that when people stop saying “hot water heater.”
The fact that Russia has not responded yet to Trump’s announcement indicates that the message was received loud and clear. Somebody likely told Medvedev to keep his mouth shut (at least for now).
That happens every month or so. Thats what the navy does.
“Trump Orders Repositioning of Two Nuclear Subs”
Biden: That is pretty extreme!
Paula: Well, what would you do?
Biden: I would say, “Don’t”
Paula: Well, what if that didn’t work?
Biden: I would send a woman pilot flying a Blackhawk helicopter. That would scare the living hail of out them.”
Paula is the first person I know to get Biden to speak in whole sentences.
I got it from a 60 minutes interview that had been edited using cutting, pasting and voice over by Charlie Chaplin.
Attack subs also carry torpedoes to attack the enemy’s ships. Russia probably doesn’t ship much, but it ships something. However I agree that Trump is rattling a saber. Old Polish proverb: rattling a saber makes noise, drawing it does not.