Vladimir Putin expands nuclear missile base after test at frozen site killed five in horror radiation leak disaster
Bombshell satellite images show construction work inside the strictly controlled military site of Nenoksa - where five people were killed after a nuclear-powered missile exploded at the testing site.
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Three new facilities - each the size of a football field - can be seen at the centre of the naval testing site.
They have been constructed near a railway line that is thought to bring missiles and testing gear into Nenoksa.
The area, which before 2023 was forest, is now surrounded by double-barbed wire fences.
The entire compound, located some 40 miles west of Arkhangelsk in northern Russia, is thought to be more than 61,000 square meters wide - and is heavily fortified.
Construction at the Russian military site is thought to have begun in 2023, according to the Barents Observer, which has been tracking all its activities.
Several big containers, reportedly used to store missiles, can be seen in the pictures.
A dedicated launch pad with two missile containers can be seen in the centre.
Both launchers are directed towards the White Sea, the latest Google Earth images show.
Similar blue launcher containers can also be seen in other test facilities for missiles in Russia.
This includes the Kapustin Yar in the Astrakhan region and recent years, at Pankovo at Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic.
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The latter has been used by Rosatom for testing the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile under development.
Another launch area is located by the shore in the northwest outskirts of the Nenoksa test range seems to still be active.
There is no public information available revealing what kind of missile tests will take place at the new constructions that can be seen on the latest satellite images.
In 2019, five Rosatom experts were killed after they were exposed to radiation at the Nenoksa site.
American nuke experts saod the testing of a Russian nuclear cruise missile was to blame for a huge explosion at a military site.
Russia's state nuclear agency confirmed the deaths were caused by a blast, which left a further three people injured and sparked radiation fears.
The accident happened while testing 'isotopic power sources in a liquid propulsion system', state nuclear agency Rosatom said in a statement.
But US experts claim Rosatom may have been testing an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile, which Vladimir Putin last year claimed to be 'invincible against all existing and prospective' defence systems.
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Russian officials initially tried to play down the radiation leak, saying the levels were normal.
But a spokeswoman for Severodvinsk, a city close to the test site, said in a statement that a "short-term" spike in background radiation was recorded at noon Thursday.
In separate interviews, two experts said that a liquid rocket propellant explosion would not release radiation.
They said the explosion and radiation release could have resulted from a mishap during the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile at a facility outside the village of Nyonoksa.
Neither the Defence Ministry nor Rosatom have identified the type of weapon that exploded during the test.
But Rosatom's statement said the explosion occurred during tests of a "nuclear isotope power source," which led observers to conclude it was the "Burevestnik" or "Storm Petrel," a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
NATO has code-named the missile "Skyfall."
The missile was first revealed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his 2018 state-of-the-nation address, along with other doomsday weapons.
Ankit Panda, an adjunct senior fellow with the Federation of American Scientists, said: "Liquid fuel missile engines exploding do not give off radiation, and we know that the Russians are working on some kind of nuclear propulsion for a cruise missile."
Arkhangelsk is a city in the north-east of Russia and was once the country's main seaport until 1703.
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