Satellite Photos Show Russia’s Upgrades to Nuclear Bases Near NATO | Invesloan.com

The four European sites include Asipovichy, which hosts a Belarusian ammunition base, and Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.

The images also capture activity in the Gadzhiyevo naval base, which is near Norway and Finland, as well as the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, which divides the Barents and Kara Seas.

The first base is in Asipovichy, a strategic city in central Belarus, a former Soviet state that has closely aligned itself with Russian President Vladimir Putin. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it surged troops into the Kyiv region from Belarus.

Five miles east of the city of Asipovichy is the Belarusian 1,405th Ammunition Base.

This image shows a zoom-out of the base before significant work was undertaken to build what imagery analysts believe are nuclear storage facilities.

Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko have both publicly said that the latter’s country would be able to host Russian nuclear weapons, widely seen as a political counter to the US hosting its own nukes in Europe.

Analysts such as Kristensen are most interested in the northern corner of the base, which is already guarded by the base perimeter.

By May 21, 2025, it was clear that a new facility with additional security had been built in the northern corner of the base.

“One thing they’ve done is they’ve put a perimeter up that consists of three layers of fencing, and the middle layer is more enhanced,” Kristensen told BI.

The entrance at the southern corner of the facility is covered, likely for guards to inspect trucks while out of sight from satellites.

The thermonuclear warheads stored at such sites would likely be tactical nukes, which are more portable and create vastly smaller explosions and fallout. A single warhead would be roughly the size of a small oven and weigh about 450 to 650 pounds.

A special unit is typically tasked with transporting these warheads, whether via helicopter to be fitted onto a missile or by truck to a storage site.

Kristensen also identified a covered off-loading ramp among a cluster of trees, which likely leads to a bunker for warhead storage. On the eastern side of the compound, a massive orange antenna for command and control can be seen.

Such security measures are the tell-tale signs of Russian nuclear sites that experts watch for in satellite imagery. Particular care has to be given to these warheads not only for their strategic importance, but because they can contain toxic gases and chemical explosives.

Kristensen added that an accident or fire could scatter radioactive material from the weapon. An accidental detonation, however, is unlikely.

A comparison between the satellite photos from April 2021 and May 2025 also shows the construction of a major roadway leading to a large platform.

This is likely to introduce a railhead into the base from the main Belarusian train lines northwest of the base, with the platform built as a facility to offload nuclear warheads from the train.

“That’s an absolute must for the Russian nuclear infrastructure,” Kristensen said. “If they need to transport nuclear warheads in here, they would most likely not be flown in, but put in by rail.”

The most likely type of warhead that Russia would store here is one that can be dropped via a gravity bomb from Belarus’ warplanes, he said, and the Kremlin usually transports such nuclear weapons by rail. Putin said in 2023 that Russia was planning to give Belarus tactical warheads that could be deployed from Minsk’s Su-25 attack jets.

Still, analysts think that while the base is built up to store those nukes, it’s unlikely there are warheads there now.

“It’s more likely that the weapons that are assigned to the site are stored in a national-level site,” said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. He believes the warheads are likely in Bryansk, about 200 miles away in Russia.

“They would be moved to Asipovichy when necessary,” Podvig added.

In the city of Asipovichy itself, there’s an additional facility that makes analysts confident that Russia is expanding nuclear sites in Asipovichy.

The vehicles from this September 2023 photo have been identified as Iskander missile launchers. These vehicles fire the Iskander short-range ballistic missile, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads.

Therefore, if Russia stations any tactical nukes in Asipovichy, it could likely also send warheads that can be used with the 300-mile-range missile. In the event of a launch, the Belarusians would likely drive the mobile launcher to a deployment spot and wait for Russian forces to separately retrieve the warheads from the base.

In this image, the building next to the Iskander launchers is a garage. “That garage was added when the Russians handed over the Iskander launchers to Belarus,” Kristensen said. The process was completed sometime in late 2022.

The Iskander base has significantly expanded in roughly three years, with at least two additional high-security garages displaying tire tracks from the 40-ton launchers, which indicate the facilities are active.

“This is a major upgrade of the base, and fast,” Kristensen said.

Gadzhiyevo is a navy depot that houses Russia’s nuclear launch-capable submarines.

Analysts know that nuclear weapons are stored here because satellite images have captured the warheads before.

This August 2020 image shows a nuclear warhead in a crane next to a green container serving as a climate control canister. To the east of the crane are entrances into the mountain, where the warheads are highly likely to be stored.

About a mile to the north are Russia’s ballistic missile submarines, which can be seen docked in piers along the coast.

The facility circled at the top of the image contains a crane that allows the subs to be loaded with intercontinental ballistic missiles, which can be fitted with strategic nuclear weapons — the type that can devastate entire cities.

The latest changes occur near the mountain entrance. Here’s the Gadzhiyevo nuclear storage site in September 2022.

By May 28, 2025, at least six new buildings had been constructed.

“The missile storage is clearly undergoing a major expansion,” Podvig told BI.

Kristensen suspects the structures could be front-loading garages or storage sites for missiles that are conventional or yet to be loaded with nuclear warheads.

“It’s right outside the missile handling facility here,” he said, referring to the crane. “The fact that the buildings are down here in this end indicates that it might be related to this.”

In 2022, state media reported that the base had approved new workshops for maintaining missiles and underwater weapons, though it’s unclear if these are the new facilities.

The third base is in western Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders Lithuania and Poland, and sits on the Baltic Sea.

The multilayered perimeter, as it appears in this June 2018 satellite photo, resembles how Russia protects its nuclear storage facilities. Analysts have long suspected that it’s built to house tactical nukes.

Next to a prison in the area is a base that’s historically served as a nuclear maintenance and deployment unit since the Soviet era.

In this 2012 Google Street View photo, posters on the site’s fences describe the unit’s purpose and history.

To analysts, its presence lends further credence to suspicions that the nearby site is for nuclear weapons.

Back at the actual storage facility, a comparison of satellite images from 2020 and November 2022 shows that Russia unburied and then reburied one of its bunkers.

Multiple layers of new fencing have also appeared.

The Kaliningrad site also has a covered entrance to allow guards to inspect trucks covertly.

Analysts noticed a small change in the facility between June 2022 and June 2025: A gray building appeared.

When commenting on its purpose to BI, Michael Duitsman, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ James Martin Center for Proliferation Studies, guessed it might be a guard shack.

However, he noted that many Russian units also draw weapons from the Kaliningrad depot, so it’s unclear what system the building may be related to.

Still, Kristensen said the same gray building appears at the Asipovichy nuclear base.

It’s stumped analysts like him so far. Russian nuclear sites typically feature standard architecture designed and approved by nuclear forces engineers. Each building typically serves a specialized function.

“We don’t yet know what it is, but it’s a new feature of these sites,” he said.

Kamchatka is across the Bering Sea from Alaska, and is home to one of Russia’s naval bases for its Pacific fleet. To its east, the Aleutian island chain bends toward Alaska; most of this island chain belongs to the US.

Russia’s Pacific Fleet has earmarked the base to host its new Poseidon nuclear-armed super torpedo. This underwater munition is nuclear-propelled, meaning it is designed to travel long distances on its own before detonating.

The capability, while not known to be operational yet, has sparked concerns in Washington that it could be used for a nuclear attack on the US west coast, such as at naval bases or population centers like the San Francisco Bay.

As with the other sites, this strong security perimeter and level of care afforded to the facility indicate this is a nuclear weapons storage bunker.

This October 2022 photo shows the bunker near several other missile storage sites littered across the compound.

Further to the north, analysts believe Russia holds or used to hold nuclear warheads in a storage area near this mountain.

But a satellite image from October 2022 shows that on the storage site’s flanks, Russia was also starting to construct two new buildings.

The building frame to the north shows long rows on one side, which Kristensen said could indicate that these are warhead bays.

“That’s where they roll in the warheads individually in a trolley, and sort of line them up against the wall,” he said.

In this new image taken on June 3, 2025, the northernmost facility is completely covered, and satellites can no longer peer inside.

To the south, a new T-shaped building has been erected as well.

There are “clear nuke signs” on these storage upgrades, Kristensen said. For one, the southern facility has triple fencing, and it appears Russia is still setting up a perimeter around the northern building.

“The perimeter fences around the new structures are similar to those for the nuclear weapons site and the weapons storage areas to the south,” said Duitsman of the Middlebury Institute, adding that they could be maintenance areas for ballistic missiles.

Additionally, the beginnings of a new construction site appeared near the northernmost facility.

The fifth base is on the northern archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, which was where the Soviet Union detonated its Tsar thermonuclear bomb — the most powerful nuclear warhead ever tested — in 1961.

Near the test site is a support base on the large island of Severny.

The archipelago is where Russia conducts subcritical experiments, or nuclear tests that don’t involve a chain reaction or full-scale explosion.

“It’s where they certify the warhead nuclear designs, but they don’t need to conduct a live nuclear test that produces a yield,” Kristensen said. “But, it’s also the site where if Russia did decide to pop a nuke at some point, it would happen here.”

Experiments on the archipelago were largely understood to have stopped in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

By August 2023, it’s clear the base has started to see significant additions, including a large new building being constructed at the southern end of the compound.

Novaya Zemlya was also the site of a 2022 test of Russia’s nuclear-powered cruise missile. NATO labeled this weapon in development the “Skyfall.”

A new photo from Planet Labs appears to show that the large building and other expansions to the base have finished construction.

In the last decade, the US intelligence community has accused Russia of continuing to conduct small-yield nuclear blasts.

They wouldn’t be conducted at these sites, especially given the lack of significant security perimeters. But new signs of life here indicate that the base is active.

“This is the base where you ship in,” Kristensen said.

It doesn’t mean that the world should necessarily be alarmed, said Podvig from the UN.

“Russia has a policy of keeping the site prepared for the resumption of tests, if necessary,” he said. The US has a similar policy.

Still, Kristensen was struck by new signs of expansion at tunnel sites near the support base. By his estimate, the Soviet Union had roughly 17 tunnels in the nearby mountains, where many of its past experiments were actually conducted.

One such tunnel entrance is just a few miles southeast of the support base.

This grainy image is from 2004, but one can just spot a long tube that serves as an entrance into the mountain.

In modern satellite images, such as this one taken on June 6, 2025, a second tunnel entrance has clearly appeared, alongside four new buildings.

Today, some of these tunnels are believed to be the sites of high-yield explosive tests for Russia’s conventional weapons.

Kristensen said that such an aggressive expansion could indicate that Russia is stepping up its experimentation, though it’s hard to say for sure.

“A whole new tunnel in the mountain next to the other one, and personnel buildings, this is a big activity beef-up,” Kristensen said.