Did Russian television accidently leak secret plans for a nuclear torpedo or is it just propaganda?

The Kremlin is known for tightly controlling information. But apparently, secret plans for a Russian long-range nuclear torpedo were accidentally made public on Russian State television.

During a news broadcast on Channel One, a video segment showed President Vladimir Putin meeting with some military officials in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. When the camera shifted angles it showed a Russian general looking over a technical diagram of a devastating new, submarine-launchable, nuclear torpedo.

Oops! Or as Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov put it, "It's true some secret data got into the shot, therefore it was subsequently deleted.”

So the Kremlin says secret designs for a Russian long-range nuclear torpedo — code named "Status-6" — should not have appeared on Russian TV news.

The weapon system is said to be designed to be able to "destroy important economic installations of the enemy in coastal areas and cause guaranteed devastating damage to the country's territory by creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time." 

But not everyone is going for this story hook, line, and sinker. Could it be nuclear propaganda?  

It's hard to believe that the Kremlin which strenuously guards information would make such a mistake, and then draw more attention to the lapse with a public statement. How could such a security breach be missed by government television censors? 

The technical diagram itself is a little suspicious, says reporter Charles Maynes in Moscow. 

”This image is almost a coloring book style diagram," he says. "It gives some of the details of the weapon — this 'Status-6' nuclear sub — it tells you about the manufacturer in Saint Petersburg, it gives all sorts of little details, but it’s obscenely big compared to the other weapons displayed, longer, bigger and more threatening than all the others. It has this kind of highly devastating, ‘Doctor Evil,' ‘Don’t give the kids the remote!’ kind of feel to it. And, the question is whether it really is top secret or whether this is a bluff?”