A joint investigation by the British The Sunday Times, the Danish Danwatch, and the Russian Dossier Center claims that work at facility 1335 near the settlement of Kytlym at the foot of Mount Kosvinsky Kamen indicates a “revival” of the Soviet “Perimeter” system, known in the West as Dead Hand (“Dead Hand”). The authors write that the secret underground command center is linked to the strategic nuclear forces command and control system.
According to the investigators, they examined about 2.5 million Russian documents and public records, including state procurement data since 2011, as well as satellite images and photographs published by Russian servicemen. They claim that especially large-scale work at the facility began in 2018: the documents mention heavy earthmoving and drilling equipment, mine ventilation, air filtration systems for protection against chemical, biological, and radioactive contamination, earthquake-resistant air-conditioning systems, steel, pipes, cables, and concrete.
According to the authors’ estimates, about 20,000 tons of steel were purchased for construction. The documentation, it is claimed, mentions at least 24 underground chambers, and the straight-line distance between the main and emergency exits is about 2.5 km. Professor at the Technical University of Denmark Per Gøltermann estimated the volume of concrete used as sufficient to build at least 150,000 square meters of surfaces. The peak in procurement, according to the investigation, came in 2020–2021, and in 2020 alone contractors used 361.4 km of cable, 5,429 light fixtures, 30 transformers, and 160 ventilation units. Satellite images, the authors write, show large spoil heaps of rock excavated from the mountain and a new road.
The authors of the investigation link the facility to the Soviet “Perimeter” system, created to preserve the ability to transmit an order for a retaliatory nuclear strike if the usual command channels for the strategic forces were destroyed. As additional evidence, they cite publications by Russian military personnel: in 2022, retired Major General V. G. Khalin wrote about placing the “Perimeter” automation system on experimental combat duty; in 2025, Colonel Yu. Andreev claimed that the facility had been put on combat duty in 2023; and in 2026, Khalin again wrote about the “technical capability of delivering an automatic retaliatory strike”.
In The Insider, Podvig called this conclusion incorrect. He said: “The facility was indeed built. But it is wrong to say that some system was reactivated. No one deactivated anything in the first place”. According to him, facility 1335 is an element of the nuclear forces command and control system, while “Perimeter” itself is primarily a backup communications system for transmitting a launch order in the event that the usual channels are destroyed.
Podvig has long described the system in exactly this way. In an analysis of an internal 1985 CPSU Central Committee document published on his Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces website, he wrote that the Soviet leadership did indeed consider creating a fully automated retaliatory strike system that the top leadership could pre-activate in a crisis. However, as he noted in 2006, the USSR did not build such an automatic “doomsday machine”, and “Perimeter”, with which it is often identified, was a different system. “Perimeter is merely a communications system that uses missiles to transmit launch orders to individual silos in the event that ground lines or other communication channels are destroyed”, Podvig explained, separately emphasizing that the system “did not have and does not have an automatic response”.
In the book Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, Podvig writes that “Perimeter” is integrated into the overall nuclear forces command system and uses special command missiles. Once an order is received, such a missile must take off and, during flight, transmit the launch order and the necessary codes directly to missile units if other communication lines are destroyed. At the design stage, an option was indeed considered in which, after preliminary activation of “Perimeter”, the command missiles could launch automatically if the system did not receive an order to stop the algorithm within a certain time, but this scheme was abandoned because of the risk that the automatic process could not be stopped.
Podvig adds that the Russian nuclear forces command system provides for the possibility of a retaliatory strike only in the event of a loss of contact with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. To do this, the system must confirm the loss of contact, detect nuclear explosions on the country’s territory, and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief must have previously authorized such a retaliatory strike option. After that, the central or backup command post can use its own authorization codes.
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