Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been throwing ambiguous hints about possible nuclear weapons attacks to the West and Ukraine, has provided himself with a shelter where he could survive the so-called nuclear winter.
He remembered occupying Crimea
The fact that there is a secret network of bunkers stretching from Moscow to the Urals, in which the USSR and later the Russian leadership would hide in the event of war, has been publicly discussed for a long time.
The first bunkers for the highest government officials were installed back in the Soviet era, but according to Oleg Roldugin, editor-in-chief of the Sobesednik magazine, after the occupation of Crimea, work on preserved bunkers was resumed, and in 2020-2021. intensified even more. Some previously conserved underground facilities have been renovated again, sparing no money.
O. Roldugin, who has studied publicly available public procurement documents, etc. documents, presented impressive facts. For example, it was decided to upgrade elevators in Moscow bunkers – 55 million was spent on three of them alone. rubles (855.4 thousand euros). This amount, according to the journalist, allows us to guess at what depth the bunkers are located. Specialists in the construction of shafts for rocket launchers participated in the modernization of these facilities.
“Many bunkers are connected by tunnels that stretch for tens of kilometers,” said O. Roldugin.
Official bunkers are taken care of by the Main Board of Special Programs under the Russian Presidency, directly subordinate to the President of the country.
During the investigation, the journalist found out that the same builders who built official bunkers and tunnels under Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik exposed by Alexei Navalny’s team are also building private hiding places.
“There are definitely bunkers in Moscow and the Urals, there are also in the Volga region,” according to O. Roldugin, V. Putin has an official and unofficial network of bunkers.
Underground Moscow
It became known in the 2000s that the talk about the bunker under the Kremlin is not a hoax, when it was reported by US intelligence. The bunker, located at a depth of 200-300 m, is believed to have been built in the 20th century. In the 1960s, after the first atomic bomb tests. It is said that in case of a possible nuclear attack, about 10,000 people could survive in this bunker for several months. people.
The famous underground system “Metro 2” connects the Kremlin, Vnukovo airport and other government institutions with other bunkers in the Russian capital, Balashikha, Chekhov and stretches almost to Kaluga, 160 km from the Russian capital.
According to the journalist, the tunnels in Moscow are installed at a depth of 200 m – this was told by underground enthusiasts who accidentally got into the tunnels, who were later sentenced to suspended and real sentences for this and forced to leave Russia.
“You can walk for hours and not meet anyone. In some places there was light, in some places there was rubble. We also found halls with the height of a twelve-story building and a length of several kilometers. I think that for the money for which it was created, it was possible to build a city worth a million,” dungeon enthusiast Pavel Safronov told reporters.
One of the secret entrances to the tunnel was discovered by journalists near Michurinsk Avenue in Moscow. There are dozens of such objects in Moscow: near Lubianka, the Ministry of Defense, and the famous “Ramenki-43”. Dungeon enthusiasts say that there is a real underground city here, connected to the Kremlin by tunnels. It has 50 thousand people could survive even 30 years.
Recently, the construction of the facility of the Moscow State University Foundation “Inopraktika”, which is believed to be headed by V. Putin’s daughter Katerina Tichonova, began in part of this territory. The territory in the other part of the wasteland belongs to the military units of the special services and the company “Transinžstroi”, which works in the underground facilities described in “Sobesednik”.
Dungeons are also located under Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik.
Enigmatic Mezhgorje
Journalists draw attention to another bunker and consider it to be special. It is 4,000 km from Moscow, on the highest (1,640 m above sea level) mountain of the southern part of the Urals, Yamantau, whose name in the Bashkir language is Evil Mountain.
Alexei Nikolsky, “Sputnik“ photo
At the end of March, when V. Putin openly threatened the West with a nuclear weapon after failing to occupy Ukraine during a lightning operation, it was possible to observe the unusual activity of the planes of the Special Aviation Group “Rossiya” under the office of the Russian President. As “Sobesednik” noticed, even planes that normally fly very rarely took to the sky. Only RA-61716, which in peacetime usually operated casually between Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi, made one weekly flight to Yekaterinburg and twice to Ufa. On the same days, another plane of the “Rossiya” group, RA-96017, visited Magnitogorsk, in addition to Yekaterinburg.
Perhaps the real destination of the flights was a smaller area without its own airport and located south of Yekaterinburg, between Magnitogorsk and Ufa, the secret city of Mezhgorje.
“Perhaps the real destination of the flights was a smaller area that does not have its own airport and is located south of Yekaterinburg, between Magnitogorsk and Ufa, the secret city of Mezhgorje,” O. Roldugin thinks.
Located to the south of Yekaterinburg, between Magnitogorsk and Ufa, Mezhgorje was created by the merger of two military settlements, Beloretsk-15 and Beloretsk-16, located 20 km from each other.
In total, about 15 thousand people live in Mežgorje. people. Entry into the city, even for local residents, is strictly controlled – access is only possible with a special permit. The Federal Aviation Agency has established a no-fly zone over the mountain, and it is very difficult to get there on foot.
The Americans followed suit long ago
You can even book a guided tour of the nearby Mažiai Jamantau mountain, while walking on the Great Jamantau, where the secret object is located, is not allowed. The area is guarded by the military, forest rangers and, judging by government contracts, DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced quadcopters with 32x zoom and thermal imaging.
Entry into the city, even for local residents, is strictly controlled – access is only possible with a special permit.
Why this settlement is so secret has never been officially explained. However, according to the publication, in 1992 former First Secretary of the Bashkiria Regional Committee of the CPSU, Midhat Shakirov, has said that a bunker for the highest state officials is being built on the local Yamantau mountain. The bunker, which began to be installed in the Soviet era, was later abandoned, but in 1995 new constructions of military infrastructure have been observed in satellite images.
Later, in 2003 In May, this information was published in the Washington Post by US Reserve Officer Bruce J. Blair, a well-known nuclear security expert. According to BJ Blair, in these remote areas in the 20th century In the late 1990s, tens of thousands of people were employed.
“Jamantau is expected to start operations soon. According to diagrams and notes given to me by senior SAC (Special Operations Center, a branch of the CIA) in the late 1990s, the Jamantau command post is located inside the mountain, about 3,000 feet (about 900 m) below the summit. This is a military base to which the highest political leadership of Russia is moving,” the expert wrote at the time.
Special workers
According to journalists, since the spring of 2021, the work in Yamantau has intensified and no money has been spared. “Sobesednik” received documents from which it can be seen that the official average monthly salary of the first deputy head of the 30th Construction Board, which carries out the main construction works in Mezhgorje, in 2020. exceeded 0.5 million rubles (about 8 thousand euros).
According to O. Roldugin, the 30th Construction Board is responsible for the construction of bunkers, whose activities are supervised by the Supreme Board of Special Programs of the President of Russia. It was this company that built the palace in Gelenžik.
Since 2015 the head of this board is the state security officer Alexander Linets, who previously headed the board of the Southern Military District of the FSB of Russia. V. Putin trusts him a lot – at least this can be judged from the fact that in 2020 A. Linec moved to 176.7 sq. m. m apartment in a building belonging to the Presidential Affairs Board in Moscow. In the same building, the head of the Kremlin administration Antonas Vaino, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergejus Naryshkinas, and the head of the Investigative Committee Aleksanders Bastrykinas have their official accommodation.
Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik/AP, Wikipedia photo.
