Vladimir Putin has revived a Cold War-era nuclear system designed to enable Russia to launch a retaliatory strike even if a devastating attack destroys its leadership.
Deep beneath a remote mountain in Russia’s central Ural wilderness, a vast underground command centre has been extensively expanded in what appears to be a renewal 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 guard the heavily fortified military complex, which lies hundreds of miles from major cities in terrain that is extremely difficult to access.
The facility forms part of Russia’s “Perimeter” system, known in the West as Dead Hand. The network was created to preserve Moscow’s ability to retaliate against an enemy after a catastrophic attack severed communications with the country’s leaders.
In the event of such an attack, Facility 1335 could send radio signals to mobile missile launchers and any surviving launch silos, directing them to respond with the full force of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Satellite imagery, construction records and photographs shared online by Russian soldiers indicate the extraordinary scale of the work being carried out at the site.
Experts say the renewed investment highlights the Kremlin’s determination to ensure that its nuclear command infrastructure can survive a major attack. Facility 1335 is understood to have been built to withstand American bunker-busting bombs.
Built to withstand American bunker-busting bombs, the vast nuclear bunker is intended to preserve Russia’s ability to retaliate after a nuclear attack cuts communications with the country’s leadership.
Putin has revived the Cold War-era system amid growing fears in Moscow of a Western attack. Facility 1335 is protected by a machine-gun turret, visible as the olive-green tower on the left, and a permanent military garrison.
The image of a man inside the tunnels appears to match construction documents describing passages four metres wide and 10 metres high.
A joint investigation by The Sunday Times, Danwatch and the Dossier Centre has identified hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of construction at the site, including new tunnels and at least 24 underground chambers.
Facility 1335 and the wider Soviet Perimeter network are believed to have fallen dormant after the Cold War, following their construction in the 1980s at the height of nuclear tensions between East and West.
The programme now appears to have been revived under Putin, amid heightened fears of a Western attack on Russia. The Facility 1335 bunker has been reopened and significantly enlarged beside Kytlym, a village of about 2,000 people located 1,300ft above sea level and surrounded by coniferous forest.
The Russian president has repeatedly threatened escalation during the war in Ukraine, including references to the possible use of nuclear weapons and warnings directed at NATO members. Those threats have followed drone attacks on Moscow and 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 construction and a substantial military presence at the compound. The first images from inside and around the facility have now emerged through open-source material.
They show the entrance guarded by soldiers and a machine-gun turret. Another photograph appears to offer an exceptionally rare view inside the underground tunnels.
The image shows a man standing inside a passage measuring four metres across and 10 metres high, dimensions that correspond with schematics found in the construction documents examined by investigators.
The bunker’s development is documented in a paper trail running to millions of pages, including tenders and construction contracts issued between 2011 and 2024. Together, the projects are valued at the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds.
An estimated 20,000 tonnes of steel—roughly the weight of three Eiffel Towers—and 150,000 square metres of concrete have been used to build the huge underground complex.
‘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.
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.
