Vladimir Putin has revived a sinister Cold War-era nuclear system designed to ensure Russia could launch a retaliatory strike even if a devastating attack eliminated the country’s leadership.
Deep beneath a remote mountain in Russia’s central Ural wilderness, a vast underground command centre has undergone a major expansion. The work appears to mark a revival of the Soviet Union’s notorious “Dead Hand” nuclear strategy.
Known as Facility 1335, the bunker is located near the tiny village of Kytlym. Soldiers now protect the heavily fortified military complex, which sits hundreds of miles from the nearest city amid terrain that is difficult to cross.
The site forms part of Russia’s “Perimeter” system, known in the West as Dead Hand. It was created to preserve Moscow’s ability to retaliate against an enemy after a catastrophic attack had severed communications with the country’s leadership.
In such a scenario, Facility 1335 would send radio signals to mobile missile launchers and any surviving launch silos, ordering a full-scale retaliatory strike.
Satellite imagery, construction records and photographs shared online by Russian soldiers have exposed the extraordinary scale of the project.
Experts say the renewed investment indicates that the Kremlin is once again placing major importance on nuclear command infrastructure capable of surviving a devastating attack. Facility 1335 itself is reportedly built to withstand American bunker-busting bombs.
This vast nuclear bunker – built to withstand American bunker-busting bombs – is designed to preserve Russia’s ability to retaliate if nuclear warheads strike the country. It could send signals to launch missiles after an attack if communications with the leadership were cut.
Putin has revived the Cold War-era system as fears of a Western attack grow in Moscow. The bunker, known as Facility 1335, is protected by a machine gun turret, visible as the olive green tower on the left, and a permanent military garrison.
This image of a man inside the tunnels matches construction documents examined in the investigation, which describe passages four metres wide and 10 metres high.
A joint investigation by The Sunday Times, Danwatch and the Dossier Centre uncovered construction work worth hundreds of millions of pounds at the site. The project includes new tunnels and at least 24 underground chambers.
Facility 1335 and the wider Soviet Perimeter network are believed to have fallen dormant after the end of the Cold War. The system was originally built in the 1980s, when tensions between the nuclear superpowers were at their height.
Putin has now revived the programme amid growing concerns in Moscow about a possible Western attack. The Facility 1335 bunker, positioned beside Kytlym’s population of about 2,000, has been reopened and substantially expanded. The village lies 1,300 feet above sea level and is surrounded by coniferous forest.
The Russian president has repeatedly threatened escalation during the war in Ukraine, including raising the possibility of using nuclear weapons and warning NATO members. His rhetoric has intensified after drone attacks on Moscow and strategically important Russian oil infrastructure.
A senior Russian military figure described Facility 1335 as the place where “strategic missile forces will fulfil their historic mission of retaliation against any enemy”.
Satellite images reveal extensive building activity and a significant military presence at the site. Open-source material has now also produced what are believed to be the first photographs of the facility.
The images show soldiers guarding the entrance alongside a machine gun turret. Another photograph appears to offer an unprecedented view inside the bunker’s tunnel network.
One image shows a man standing in a passage measuring four metres across and 10 metres high, dimensions that correspond with schematics found in the construction records examined by investigators.
The bunker’s development is recorded in a paper trail running to millions of pages, including tenders and building contracts issued between 2011 and 2024. Together, the documents put the value of the work at the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Construction is thought to have consumed around 20,000 tonnes of steel—roughly the weight of three Eiffel Towers—and 150,000 square metres of concrete.
‘It is an enormous construction,’ Professor Per Golterman at the Institute for Construction and Mechanical Technology at the Technical University of Denmark said after estimating the project used as much concrete as that needed to construct a large multi-storey building.
While this gigantic doomsday infrastructure is being built in Russia, Danish intelligence warned of a ‘low but growing risk’ of a Kremlin-ordered attack on a NATO country, adding that Moscow was under more pressure than ever since its invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this week, NATO fighter jets in Poland and Romania were scrambled after Russian drones came close to their borders with Ukraine.
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A photo of the entrance to the original Dead Hand bunker in the 1980s, which has since been rebuilt extensively by Putin
A model of the new military camp at the site, known as Unit 20003. The camp has been massively expanded since the site was created in the 1980s
Three Eiffel Towers’ worth of steel and 150,000 square metres of concrete have been used to build the bunker as well as hundreds of kilometres of cable and the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds
A satellite image of Unit 20003 shows the same layout at the model
A zoomed-out satellite image showing Unit 20003 at the top. The brown mass on the left is Kosvinsky Kamen mountain, under which the bunker is believed to have been built. Two other roads lead up towards the mountain and are thought to be other entrances
The first official clue towards the revival of the Dead Hand scheme was mentioned by Putin in a meeting with military advisers in 2020.
‘We are aware that a lot depends on the survivability of these systems and their ability to continue operating in a combat environment’, Putin said in transcripts released by the Kremlin.
‘They have told me that the creation of an absolutely secure facility for controlling strategic nuclear forces, among others, is nearing completion, and that it will have a very high safety margin.’
It was around this time that procurement for the bunker project, which was carved into the granite mountain of Kosvinsky Kamen just outside Kytlym, was at its height.
361.4km of cable, 5,429 lamps, 30 transformers, 160 ventilation units and 648 drilling tools were all ordered to the site between 2020 and 2021 – hundreds of miles from the nearest city and surrounded by coniferous forests.
Satellite pictures show huge piles of excavated earth accumulating on the mountainside over years of construction from 2022 to 2025. Meanwhile, the building was tracked on paper too, documenting the job from start to finish, from tunneling to internal fit-outs.
The successful US bombing of nuclear bunkers in Iran adds further pressure on Russia and reduces a sense of safety.
Tom Roseth, expert in Russian security policy at the Norwegian Staff College, said: ‘It appears that the Russians are securing this facility against every type of attack. To protect 1335 and the command-and-control facilities of the nuclear forces, they therefore have to dig even deeper and reinforce the site even more.
‘The expansion of Facility 1335 follows a major upgrade of Russia’s nuclear forces, which has been given high priority within the Russian armed forces. The perimeter will once again be given priority now, in a more tense geopolitical situation in which Russia sees itself as being in conflict with the West.’
Pictures of the outside have been shared on social media by Russian soldiers stationed at the new part of the facility – a military camp called Unit 20003.
The camp has been totally revamped and has grown hugely since its creation in the 1980s, where troops are drilled and undergo specialist training.
Retired Major General VG Khalin said that Facility 1335 was planned to be in ‘combat duty’ in 2022
Retired Major General VG Khalin, who served in Russia’s main intelligence directorate, explained the Perimeter system in 2022 in the Russian newspaper Veteran-Rocketman, saying it started in 1973.
He added: ‘Currently, plans are underway to place its automation system on experimental combat duty at Facility 1335. Thus, its life cycle is currently approximately sixty years.’
Colonel Yu Andreev said in the same publication that Facility 1335 ‘was placed on combat duty in 2023’.
Russia’s reinforcement of its fortifications coincides with America’s.
The US is upgrading the Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado and the Raven Rock Mountain complex in Pennsylvania, dubbed the underground Pentagon.