Russia’s defence minister is ensconced in a nuclear bunker in the Ural mountains, according to investigators, after weeks of speculation about his conspicuous absence.
Flight data shows that Sergei Shoigu has been travelling to and from bunkers 1,000 miles east of Moscow since the start of the invasion, as the threat of nuclear war reaches its highest level in decades.
Shoigu, 66, who is one of the chief architects of the invasion, was not seen in public for over a fortnight until last weekend, when he appeared chairing a meeting on Russia’s weapons budget.
He also appeared on Tuesday at a meeting with military officials to restate that the “liberation” of the Donbas was Russia’s primary objective. Shoigu added that Russia had degraded Ukraine’s military and would respond if Nato supplied Ukraine with planes and air defence systems.
Such a prolonged absence is highly unusual for a man who has been a constant presence on Russian television for the past ten years, sparking rumours of ill health.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, denied the suggestion, saying instead that the minister “has a lot on”.
According to Christo Grozev, a journalist with the investigative website Bellingcat, Shoigu’s absence may be explained by the fact that he has spent much of the past month in a bunker near Ufa, in the southern Ural mountains.
Grozev, who uncovered the identities of the two Salisbury poisoners, said that flight tracker data showed that Kremlin planes were “constantly” flying to and from Ufa, including those known to be used by the defence minister.
Use of Russia’s military bunkers, which contain situation rooms used for military planning, is not unprecedented.
“[Shoigu moving to the nuclear bunker] is logical and it’s not totally surprising,” Grozev said.
Russia is known to have built a large bunker facility in Mount Yamantau in the late 1970s for the purpose of maintaining command and control in the event of a nuclear war. Yamantau, which means “evil mountain” in the local Bashkir language, is 180 miles east of Ufa.
According to US intelligence reports, the complex has been continuously upgraded and expanded over the years.
In November 2020, President Putin made comments at a meeting of defence staff that indicated a new mountain-based facility was nearing completion. It was not clear whether he was referring to Yamantau or a new site entirely.
Grozev added that there were likely to be other more “elite and comfortable” bunkers further north in the Urals, but it was not possible to find their exact location as the pilots switched off tracking for the final 30 minutes of each flight.
In a wide-ranging conversation with two journalists from Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent news outlets in Russia, Grozev also said that he believed Russian security services had wasted “billions of dollars” on failed attempts to secure support from the “shady political class” in Ukraine in the lead-up to the war.
“From 2014 to the present day, between 140 and 150 FSB officers had an unlimited budget to spend on recruiting Ukrainians of any level,” he said.
Grozev added that much of the money was spent wooing Ukrainian recruits with expensive trips to Thailand, Cyprus and the Maldives. “It was money that they never earned,” he added, noting the failure of the FSB’s aims to stir up unrest and garner support in Ukraine.
