Plans for secret nuclear facilities published in a Russian tender

Plans for secret nuclear facilities in Russia have been made publicly available after being published in tender documents.

The Danish publication Danwatch and the German magazine Der Spiegel reported this in a joint investigation.

Journalists analyzed over two million tender documents and found many diagrams of strategic missile bases in the town of Yasny in the Orenburg region.

The documents reveal the internal layout of the facilities in great detail, including the location of underground tunnels.

The materials also contain information about where soldiers eat, sleep, go to the toilet, rest, and what training equipment they use.

According to current Russian legislation, military tender documents should not be published in the public domain since 2020. However, as the investigation has established, these documents remain online.

Commenting on the situation, a former British military intelligence officer called the leak a “serious breach of security procedures.”

In his opinion, such publicity potentially makes military bases vulnerable to external attacks.

In total, there are 11 nuclear weapons storage facilities in Russia. Over the past decade, most of them have been modernized and reinforced, particularly with electronic monitoring systems and modern air defense systems.

However, the detailed internal layout of such facilities has always remained classified. Western intelligence services only have outdated information about these bases, dating back to the 1960s and 1970s.

In 2024, Vladimir Putin approved Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine. The document included a clause on the possibility of a nuclear strike in response to “aggression by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear power.”

At the time, the Kremlin stated that Ukraine’s use of Western non-nuclear missiles against Russia in accordance with the new doctrine could be grounds for a nuclear response.