Russia is modernizing its nuclear weapon sites, including underground missile silos and support infrastructure. Data, including building plans, diagrams, equipment, and other schematics, is accessible to anyone in the public procurement database.
Journalists from Danwatch and Der Spiegel scraped and analyzed over two million documents from the public procurement database, which exposed Russian nuclear facilities, including their layout, in great detail. The investigation unveils that European companies participate in modernizing them.
According to the exclusive Der Spiegel report, Russian procurement documents expose some of the world’s most secret construction sites.
“It even contains floor plans and infrastructure details for nuclear weapons silos,” the report reads.
German building materials and construction system giant Knauf and numerous other European companies were found to be indirectly supplying the modernization through small local companies and subsidiaries.
Knauf condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and announced its intention to withdraw from its Russian business in 2024. Knauf told Der Spiegel that it only trades with independent dealers and cannot control who ultimately uses its materials in Russia.
Danwatch jointly reports that “hundreds of detailed blueprints” of Russian nuclear facilities, exposed in procurement databases, make them vulnerable to attacks.
“An enormous Russian security breach has exposed the innermost parts of Russia’s nuclear modernization,” the article reads.
“It’s completely unprecedented.”
The journalists used proxy servers in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to circumvent network restrictions and access the documents. The rich multimedia in the report details the inner structure of bunkers and missile silos.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, announced an extensive modernization of the country’s nuclear arsenal on March 1st, 2018.
The leaked documents, as recent as the summer of 2024, reveal numerous new facilities built across all of Russia.
“Entire bases have been almost leveled and rebuilt from the ground up. Hundreds of new barracks, watchtowers, control centers, and storage buildings have been erected, and several kilometers of underground tunnels have been excavated,” the Danish publication writes.
The report lists detailed descriptions of nuclear base security systems, including layers of electric fences, seismic and radioactivity sensors, explosion-proof doors, and others.
Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces have around 900 active warheads and are central to the country’s nuclear deterrence strategy.
The Danwatch report marks the areas from which Russia can launch its long-range ballistic missiles carrying the largest nuclear weapons “in existence,” capable of destroying entire cities.
Ukrainian media speculate that the leak could force some nuclear infrastructure to be rebuilt from scratch, potentially costing billions.
🔥Unbelievable: Leak of 2 Million Secret Documents Exposes Russia’s Nuclear Bases
undefined NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 28, 2025
European journalists from Danwatch and Der Spiegel have obtained access to a massive trove of 2 million documentsdetailing Russia’s strategic nuclear facilities. Among them are detailed blueprints… pic.twitter.com/tRQwSaxO7w
According to the reports, Russian procurement documents with sensitive data are still publicly available.
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