Russia has launched a major nuclear disaster drill at an atomic power plant near Vladimir Putin's vast 'Dead Hand' doomsday bunker. More than 1,000 people are taking part in the exercise at Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant in the Sverdlovsk region.
Drill scenario and participants
The drill tests how emergency responders handle a simultaneous accident at two reactors. It envisages nuclear explosions or leaks and involves rescue workers, medical personnel, police, troops from Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Forces, and government officials.
'The scenario is based on a highly improbable combination of multiple adverse events, including natural disasters,' said Rosatom, Russia's state-owned nuclear energy corporation. 'The goal is to test the readiness of personnel and the coordination between emergency services.'
Rumors and signals
Telegram channels in Russia have been set ablaze with rumours of a more sinister reason for the drills. 'Deploying personnel in chemical protection suits onto the streets of the Urals serves as both a stress test for civil defence and a clear signal to Western intelligence agencies,' one Telegram channel wrote. 'The Kremlin is demonstrating that Russia is physically and psychologically preparing for a war of attrition involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that, unlike European capitals, we are already actively practising survival mechanisms.'
Exercise details and location
The two-day exercise includes carrying out evacuations, clearing rubble and extinguishing fires. The authorities called on residents of Zarechny not to panic, stressing that a major drill of this kind is held once a year at different atomic power plants.
This one lies just 200 miles from a Putin doomsday nuclear bunker at the core of his 'Dead Hand' atomic strike system, also known as Perimeter. The heavily protected facility is buried deep inside 4,984ft Kosvinsky Kamen mountain in the northern Urals. It is designed to allow an order to wipe out the West – even if Putin and the top Kremlin leadership had been killed in a NATO strike. It houses communications equipment designed to keep orders flowing to Russia's nuclear forces if a first strike destroys the Kremlin's usual command and control centres, leaving the leadership incapacitated.
The scale is staggering, with procurement documents showing the giant bunker includes 22,000 tonnes of steel—enough to build three Eiffel Towers. The Putin complex called Object 1335 inside hollowed-out granite has swallowed 56,000 tonnes of cement since his secret decree 20 years ago to modernise the 'Dead Hand' system.
Under an 'automated' system, an officer still makes the final decision on a retaliatory strike. But in 'automatic' mode, the sequence could proceed without any order from Putin and his top commanders if, for example, they had been wiped out. This effectively overrides the 'triple key' under which three people must sanction a Russian nuclear launch – Putin, 73, his Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, 67, and Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov, 71.
