Satellite photos show how Russia is building up 5 of its secret nuclear bases
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.
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