Russia modernizes at least five nuclear bases near Europe

Swedish broadcaster SVT reported the information, citing relevant satellite images from Planet Labs, which show robot warehouses, test sites, and fenced railway stations. 

"We know about this and have been monitoring it for a long time. This applies to both Russian investments in nuclear weapons capabilities and the development of a new doctrine," says Defense Minister Pål Jonson.

For example, satellite images from May 2025 show that in Belarus, at the base in Asipovichi, the Russians are modernizing a Soviet-era nuclear weapons storage facility. It has a triple fence, a new platform for railway transportation, and air defense systems.

The Russian Federation has also modernized the nuclear weapons base in Kaliningrad, which is 270 kilometers from Sweden. New buildings, a triple fence, and new means of communication have appeared there. According to the Polish government, approximately 100 units of tactical nuclear weapons are stored in Kaliningrad. 

New large-scale facilities have been built on Novaya Zemlya Reference (Novaya Zemlya is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean belonging to Russia. It is located between the Barents and Kara Seas, in the northeast of Europe. The archipelago consists of two large islands — Northern and Southern, separated by the narrow Matochkin Shar Strait - ed.). Experts call this base the most important in Russia for nuclear testing.

And on the Kola Peninsula Reference (The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in northwestern Russia, in the Murmansk region, between the Barents and White Seas - ed.), approximately 50 storage facilities for sea-based ballistic missiles and a pier for loading missiles onto submarines have been built.

"Russia has lowered the threshold for threats with nuclear weapons. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, such threats at various political levels have been voiced more than 200 times," says Pål Jonson.

Experts call nuclear weapons Russia's most important trump card in negotiations. The Kremlin regularly intimidates the world community with it.