Vladimir Putin mass producing ‘mobile nuclear bunkers’ as tensions with West escalate

Russia is launching mass production of mobile nuclear war shelters amid acute concern that Vladimir Putin could trigger nuclear war. 

The move comes 1,000 days into the conflict with Ukraine. 

Today, Nov. 19, Putin rewrote Russia’s nuclear doctrine to suggest he might trigger Armageddon if Ukraine strikes his territory with NATO-supplied weapons. 

Such a strike on an ammunition arsenal in Bryansk region with ATACMS US-supplied missiles has now been admitted by his own defence ministry. 

For the first time, Russia has gone into serial production of mobile nuclear shelters. 

These are intended to give protection from the light radiation of a nuclear explosion and radioactive contamination of the area, according to the All-Russian Research Institute for Civil Defence and Emergencies. One variant is called Kub-M manufactured in the city of Dzerzhinsk, named after brutal Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police. 

This is a £300,000 mobile shelter and can be transported by road or rail, said the Moscow Times. It can fit 54 people but its capacity can be increased by 150 people by adding additional blocks if necessary. 

It “provides reliable protection against air shock waves, explosive and fragmentation effects of conventional weapons, falling debris from building structures, as well as toxic, chemical, and radioactive substances, and penetrating radiation”. Once placed on a prepared site, Kub-M modules are connected to existing utility networks. 

In their absence, it is able to operate autonomously for up to two days. In such a scenario, it is equipped with life-support systems like air filtration and regeneration, backup water supply, sewage, and heating. 

The shelters are designed to “protect the population from the effects of all types of modern weapons, including nuclear weapons”. How effective they would be is open to question. 

Separately, Russia has a network of bunkers for its senior civilian and military officials is all regions of the country which spans 11-time zones. The mobile shelters are a long way from Putin’s own bunkers. 

He has a new nuclear control centre – believed to be an underground city – where he can live for years with his family and leading apparatchiks. The location of the command and control bunker near Ufa, capital of the Bashkortostan republic – some 725 miles east of Moscow. 

On Putin’s orders, former defence minister Sergei Shoigu operated from here early in the war in 2022. But Putin’s notorious network of palaces are also believed to have concealed bunkers offering VIP accommodation and living facilities.