Massive leak exposes Russian nuclear facilities
Detailed blueprints of Russia’s modernized nuclear weapon sites, including missile silos, were found leaking in public procurement database. Russia is modernizing its nuclear weapon sites, including underground missile silos and support infrastructure. Data, including building plans, diagrams, equipment, and other schematics, is accessible to anyone in the public procurement database. Journalists from Danwatch and Der Spiegel scraped and analyzed over two million documents from the public procurement database, which exposed Russian nuclear facilities, including their layout, in great detail. The investigation unveils that European companies participate in modernizing them. According to the exclusive Der Spiegel report, Russian procurement documents expose some of the world’s most secret construction sites. “It even contains floor plans and infrastructure details for nuclear weapons silos,” the report reads. German building materials and construction system giant Knauf and numerous other European companies were found to be indirectly supplying the modernization through small local companies and subsidiaries. Knauf condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and announced its intention to withdraw from its Russian business in 2024. Knauf told Der Spiegel that it only trades with independent dealers and cannot control who ultimately uses its materials in Russia. Danwatch jointly reports that “hundreds of detailed blueprints” of Russian nuclear facilities, exposed in procurement databases, make them vulnerable to attacks. “An enormous Russian security breach has exposed the innermost parts of Russia’s nuclear modernization,” the article reads. “It’s completely unprecedented.” The journalists used proxy servers in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to circumvent network restrictions and access the documents. The rich multimedia in the report details the inner structure of bunkers and missile silos.
