Translated material
Find Putin in the bunker
It is now more relevant for Putin to build underground bunkers than palaces. How many are there? And is it possible to determine in which President of the Russian Federation is located in this moment? And is there really a direct proportion between the number of bouker for the president and his chances to survive in the event of a nuclear strike? They discuss: the editor -in -chief of the Office weekly and the author of the article “Secret Bunkers of Putin. Where and how the president plans to hold nuclear winter“ Oleg Roldugin , Digger Pavel Sofronov , who tried to get to these bunkers, journalist Sergei Sokolov (deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta ), Sergey Migdal , a military expert.
Video version of the program
Elena Rykovtseva: Searching for Putin’s palaces is already irrelevant. Apparently, they are not being built as intensively as before, because they switched to bunkers, they are also bomb shelters, they are apparently palaces.
The editor -in -chief of the weekly “interlocutor” Oleg Roldugin is in touch. Do I say correctly that the trend is already different: no longer palaces - already bunkers?
Oleg Roldugin: Moreover, partly these palaces and bunkers are two in one. Recall the palace in Gelendzhik, under which the 60-meter tunnel and another hundred-meter entrance to the right, entrance to the left. Probably, under each palace, just in case, there is also a bunker.
Elena Rykovtseva: And new ones appeared?
It is now more relevant to build underground bunkers for Putin than palaces
Oleg Roldugin: Rather, they did not appear, but re -certified. New is a well -forgotten old one. Once it was built, maybe it began in Soviet times; Technologies move forward, respectively, I want more comfort, including for sitting underground. Therefore, in the last year or two, work has been activated in order to put in order the old economy, which was already laid in the early years of Putin’s reign and even before it.
Elena Rykovtseva: Judging by your investigation, does this activation chronologically coincide with the last year? Is it possible to say that since February, these works have been more actively carried out to improve the bunkers that have already been?
Oleg Roldugin: No, they began to be carried out more actively, probably after Crimea (this is 2015), and even more actively - by 2020. It is no secret that there were some plans.
Elena Rykovtseva: Correctly I understand that in these construction sites, if you did this before, and not now, could we conclude about these plans, which we now know, unfortunately, in fact?
Oleg Roldugin: Perhaps yes. All my investigation is based on open data, anyone could receive this information, including foreign special services, if they wanted to draw some conclusions out of this. Either they did not want, or conclusions were made, but remained in secret folders.
Elena Rykovtseva: With us, Pavel Sofronov , Digger, who was engaged in these investigations. Please tell us what a way to get to where even the mouse should not slip, get closer to these underground work, which are carried out with these bunkers?
Pavel Sofronov: You cannot underestimate the balbes of the Putin system: there not only the mouse can slip, but also ordinary people. All this, at least, for the state of 2014, when we were there, and even now, too, is not particularly guarded. Many objects are in a dilapidated, half -abandoned state. Many of them, as Oleg correctly said, since the beginning of 2014 began to actively recover, get up, or began to make some repairs. A lot of money is drunk on the security system. Underground construction is one of the most expensive, and the potential for corruption there is quite large. And if this is also a secret underground construction, where you can drink security, on security, on alarms, on staff training and other things, then there is generally a wide scope for the dream of life of any Russian corrupt official.
You cannot underestimate the baldbes of the Putin system: there not only the mouse can slip, but also ordinary people
Elena Rykovtseva: And for any Digger, it turns out. You were still there for a long time, you could no longer see all these new improvements, despite the whole mess (sorry for the jargon word), you could not get there? In this interventor, which is described in the article.
Pavel Sofronov: I did not try to get there, because it is far enough from Moscow. Yes, and I have not climbed in principle since 2015. But I watched how other people climbed. A year after we were there, we opened a criminal case, put him in prison ... Of course, after that something changed there, but not so that it became an impossible task there. If the usual 17-18-year-old boys were able to climb there and walk there for three days, then this indicates the "safety" of these structures.
Elena Rykovtseva: with us Sergey Migdal , military expert. This is a very relevant topic - how to find Vladimir Putin. It is believed that he is very well and reliably hidden, that he, like a nesting doll in these bunkers, can be in one, maybe in another, maybe in the third, it is completely impossible to track. Now our wonderful Digger Pavel, who participated in this investigation, tells us that in fact, a mess reigns there, anyone can get there. It turns out that it is easier to find Putin than we think?
Sergey MIGITAL: I don’t know how easy it is to find him, I don’t need to look for him. It is regularly shown on TV.
Elena Rykovtseva: Find with a specific goal - so that it is a goal.
Sergey MIGITAL: Here we move a little to the field of nuclear deterrence strategy, the use of strategic nuclear forces. In the American flexible response strategy, which was accepted under President Reagan, and then improved several times, one of the important steps is an attempt to decapitate the leadership of the hostile country and thus quickly win the war without going into some long military conflict or all-naval thermy-core war. Speaking of this, we are talking about the most extreme, highest level of conflict between superpower.
All the main bunkers are known where Putin is located, including the famous bunker beyond the Urals
Here we need to distinguish between two things - the intentions of the only country that is really capable of doing this (these are the United States of America), and how the leadership of Russia and Vladimir Putin himself sees this topic. He is known for his almost paranoid and very stringent attitude to security, to secrecy of information, to the safety of his family too. He was always known for not issuing almost no data, we still read about the alleged daughters, alleged by grandchildren, alleged by Putin's wife. Therefore, it is clear that very large funds are invested in this.
The United States has many ways to track it. He is not all the time underground, as we see, he still appears in public, sometimes wears wreaths at some grave of an unknown soldier or comes to someone's funeral, as when there were the funeral of Zinichev , his former guard, Minister of Emergency Situations. He attends summits in both Russia and Central Asia, in other not too far places, for this he flies on all famous sides from the Russian presidential detachment. All this where necessary is tracked. All the main bunkers are known where it is located, including the famous bunker beyond the Urals, in the mountains. Nevertheless, I do not see and do not predict any intentions of America to strike him. All this is more associated with the typical mood of the Russian president himself, who wants to maximize his safety. This was especially aggravated after the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic: maximum isolation from people. It just fits him in mentality. I don’t know how much this retains his personal security.
Elena Rykovtseva: That is, financially he feels better when he has many palaces, and morally - when he has many bunkers. Now they, as colleagues say, are becoming more modern and more perfect. That is, for him this is rather a personal reassurance. And you can find it, as you say, in any one, he is still a man, not a needle.
Sergey MIGITAL: Absolutely. He has to appear somewhere: at the award ceremonies, sometimes at the Security Council. Although, pay attention, he is increasingly conducting them in the video, most likely, being in Sochi, in his palace, in the residence: he prefers them to Moscow. In any case, there is a concept: so that the leadership of the state, its command not to be taken by surprise, there must be a system of such bunkers, shelters, protected command posts. By the way, it exists in the USA, and in the UK, and in France, in Israel, in China, and in India, and in Pakistan, in case of some exacerbation, so that the armed forces and leadership of the enemy knew that this was not such a simple task-to easily and at ease to decapitate the leadership of the opposing side. Maybe this also acts as a kind of deterrence of escalation from the enemy.
Putin trusts only his trusted people - these are friends and relatives
Elena Rykovtseva: We will now see the plot exactly about these bunkers. Interestingly, the name of the main Putin Ural bunker "Mezhgorye" is very similar to the name "Mezhigorye", in which the infamous Viktor Yanukovych lived.
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0:00 0:03:48 Elena Rykovtseva: It’s stupid to ask if it is Katerina Tikhonova by chance ... Is it on purpose that she had not only a shelter from above, but also a shelter from below?
Oleg Roldugin: Putin trusts only his trusted people - these are friends and, above all, relatives, in whom he is firmly sure. Although it is unlikely that Katerina Tikhonova was deliberately introduced into this several years ago, they just took advantage of the case.
The cave lifestyle for most of our elite is more suitable than any other
Elena Rykovtseva: Sergey Sokolov , deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta, is in touch with us. You heard a figure - 55 thousand people in principle can hide. Let’s not about Putin now, but about this list of lucky ones, about this “golden billion”, which is not a billion, but 55 thousand. Do you think that there really may be a list of people, officials, friends, relatives and so on, who, according to some signal, will be primarily evacuated in such shelters prepared for a long stay?
Sergey Sokolov: I do not believe in this, because nothing in Russia is so accessible to others as information. Accordingly, this would already be known. Even if such a business exists, then it would be a monstrous social experiment. Can you imagine our elite who sits together in one place?
Elena Rykovtseva: I can. When the choice, excuse me, between the way to burn upstairs or sit together, they will probably choose together.
Sergey Sokolov: Then they all have a surname McClaud, because only one will survive. They do not tolerate each other. If there were some lists, then a wild fight and war would have already been following them. In general, I like this idea. I believe that a cave lifestyle for most of our elite is more suitable than any other. It would also be nice if the doors were jammed, for example. As for safety, everything that has happened to us has recently shows that at this level of technological training and corruption there can be no safety. I rather agree with your wonderful Digger, who reported that all this is a ritual dance, the essence of which is to make a lot of money.
Elena Rykovtseva: Let's hope that this is so. Because the scale of construction looks frightening. Sergey, how do you feel about this kind of statements that such a number of people can survive? You can evaluate the potential power of the applied impact. Can there really be some kind of set of people who will be invited to go down there, and the entrance will be closed to someone?
Sergey MIGITAL: It is very difficult to imagine. We practically go to the world of science fiction.
Elena Rykovtseva: In the book of Dmitry Glukhovsky "Metro 2033" .
Sergei Migdal: Even before the book of Mitya Glukhovsky was my St. Petersburg countryman Vyacheslav Rybakov with his book “Notes of a Dead Man”, where people live in such a bunker, from great bosses to some scientists and people who accidentally got there. There is even a local speculator selling bulbs and it is not clear how preserved fresh apples, which he gets from somewhere, changing to other valuable things.
I do not envy the inhabitants of the bunker under the Kremlin, on which ten five -methon missiles will fall
Speaking seriously, as one of the interlocutors correctly said, all this fell into decay for many years. These large shelters for the leadership of the state, the main officials, their families, especially important people-this all began in the early 50s. Then the power of modern thermonuclear warheads was still poorly represented. Since then, special guided bombs, ballistic missiles have appeared, which are capable of piercing the outer shell, earth and even several layers of concrete at hypersonic speeds, exploding underground, sometimes a couple of hundred meters in the depths. Let's say such an explosion is ten megaton underground. Now imagine that one hundred such five -methane missiles will be put in this funnel for reliability. I do not at all envy the inhabitants of the bunker under the Kremlin, on which one after another ten such five -methon missiles will fall. No one living there will still be left there.
Elena Rykovtseva: That is, if they do not have time to gnaw at each other, as Sergey Sokolov predicts, will they still have the same fate?
Sergey MIGITAL: Most likely, they will die much faster. When Reagan came to power, he demanded to show him the plans of the nuclear war. At first they did not want to show him, they said: you are president, you don’t need, here smart people are sitting. But Ronald was stubborn, forced him to bring, he was shown. There was a plan at the beginning of the war to launch almost half of the entire stock in the USSR and its satellites. And since hundreds of new warheads were put into service every year as part of the arms race, then each side already had thousands of strategic warheads and missiles. For example, in Leningrad, for each megaton warhead they gave some goal: say, the Kirov plant, the "electrician", the Admiralty, the Baltic Plant-and still there were too many. Since the 50s, one atomic bomb was stored, which was supposed to fall on a tyrant, the capital of Albania, because it was an ally of the USSR.
Reagan, looking at this plan in 1981, found that seven megaton bombs were supposed to fall on the tyrant, and asked: why? They answered him: we have so many extra, we no longer know where to spread them. He says: the guys from the State Department told me that they were not allies of the USSR for a long time, but on the contrary, they are at war with him. Sorry for these Albanians, why throw seven megaton bombs on them? They said: well, we have to put them somewhere. He almost forcely forced them to change the plan and come up with a plan for a flexible response, first of all - a blow to the leadership and on the means of delivery of launch. This is important to understand: everything is no longer exactly as in the past. And bunkers are, in my opinion, more for some kind of complacency, for a sense of Putin’s safety and some people in senior management.
Elena Rykovtseva: Hearing about the Urals, I recall Siberia, Tyumen and my grandmother, who said that in Tyumen during the war in the same ward lay six Vladimir Ilyichi Lenin. One of them was real, from the mausoleum, the other five were fake. She or one of her friends allegedly saw with their own eyes all the sixes lying there in this very room. Do you think Vladimir Putin actually came at least once to this bunker in the Urals? At the beginning of this war, there was talk that he was in a bunker there, and not in a bunker in Moscow.
Bunkers are more for complacency, for a feeling of Putin’s safety and people in senior management
Sergey MIGIGNA: This is not accurate data, but, as far as I know, came. There was no such thing that he was evacuated and hiding. What they saw in late February - early March of this year, these were large exercises related to the outbreak of war. But this was not emergency evacuation, since the atomic war was expected. The situation is acute, the conflict began, they decided to check this system, conducted full -scale exercises with real flights, with a visit there and an exit. At the same time, as I understand it, Vladimir Vladimirovich examined everything, but he just did not hide there, then he flew to Moscow or to Sochi, to some other residence.
Elena Rykovtseva: Let's see what Moscow passers -by think, answering the question of whom the first to be saved in the event of a nuclear conflict.
Elena Rykovtseva: Oleg, I want to ask you as the chief editor of the publication. For some reason, unfortunately, no one said said that the journalists would be the first to save. We admit, and our passers -by allow this (I think they are completely right) that there are some groups of people who will be saved first. What do you think, by what principle can such lists be formed? И как может выглядеть эвакуация в случае ядерного конфликта, а не просто какого-то другого или стихийного бедствия, по какому принципу это все будет организовано?
Олег Ролдугин: Я думаю, прежде всего это близкий круг и силовики, которые обеспечивают безопасность президента. Вы не случайно спрашивали меня о Катерине Тихоновой. Если посмотреть на спонсоров фонда "Иннопрактика" , то это "Росатом", "Роснефть", "Газпром" и так далее: все спонсоры наверняка попадут в этот список. Прежде всего, те люди, которые работают в Администрации президента, наверное, в верхушке вооруженных сил. Потому что остальных людей, насколько я знаю, во всяком случае в Москве, не спешат оповестить о том, где находятся обычные бомбоубежища, не говоря уже о секретных бункерах, которые залегают на глубине 200 метров. Те, кто служит в окружении Путина, наверное, уже отрепетировали все это на учениях. А если нас с вами не оповестили, то мы, к сожалению, не входим в этот список.
В первую очередь будет спасать близкий круг и силовиков, обеспечивающих безопасность президента
Елена Рыковцева: Как технически это может выглядеть во время конфликта? У нас есть люди, которых мы должны оповестить, что через какое-то время будет такого-то рода опасность: как может выглядеть процедура их спасения? Первое Олег уже назвал – они точно знают, куда им отправляться на этот случай.
Сергей Соколов: Глубоко в этом сомневаюсь. Я сильно переживаю за господина Кудрина, он очень не вовремя ушел с поста председателя Счетной палаты, не позаботился о своей безопасности. Не думаю, что есть такие списки и такие планы по эвакуации, потому что все происходит намного более стремительно, чем тогда, когда придумывали концепцию больших бункеров. Это технически невозможно.
Елена Рыковцева: Сергей, как это может выглядеть, и сколько времени это может занять? В какой момент эти люди, ближний круг, получают сигнал, что пора бежать туда, куда им сказано?
Сергей Мигдаль: Это не только ближний круг – это и обслуживающий персонал, который необходим для управления и функционирования системы, даже в случае войны, тяжелого поражения со стороны врага. Такое существует и в Америке, и там это, кстати, иногда репетируют. Много лет после окончания холодной войны этим тоже не занимались, а последние несколько лет стали обновлять. У каждого конгрессмена, сенатора, крупных чинов Госдепартамента, Министерства юстиции, Министерства финансов, Министерства чрезвычайных ситуаций и так далее есть помощники, есть папочки, где все расписано: где их убежище, куда и как они должны полететь, за кем прилетят вертолеты, за кем самолеты, кто будет эвакуироваться на машинах.
Все это реально работает не в случае какой-то кинопаники, когда вдруг ни с того ни с сего полетели ракеты, а перед этим все ходили и нюхали цветочки: в таком случае, скорее всего, почти никого не спасут. Эта система должна работать более-менее нормально в случае, который считается наиболее вероятным, то есть постепенной, поэтапной эскалации, повышения напряженности. Даже в знаменитом Карибском кризисе все же не произошло за секунду, эта эскалация длилась несколько дней, за которые уже была подготовлена реальная эвакуация, соответствующие убежища, как в СССР, так и в Америке стояли на парах вертолеты и самолеты, чтобы отвозить президента, его окружение, всех необходимых бюрократов в соответствующие подземные бункеры и пункты управления.
Очевидно, на каком-то этапе повышения напряженности, если люди в Генштабе и в Совете национальной безопасности считают, что резко выросла опасность прямого вооруженного конфликта с другой ядерной державой, то уже тогда подготавливаются конкретные шаги для такой эвакуации. Иногда эвакуация происходит заранее. В свое время проводились такого рода учения: происходит эвакуация в противоатомные бункеры и в подземные пункты управления и командования, чтобы, когда эскалация усилится, это не застало врасплох.
Кроме того, когда есть такой конфликт и эскалация, параллельно происходят и соответствующие этапы повышения готовности, введения в строй систем гражданской обороны, появление соответствующих патрулей, как армейских, так и гражданских, открытие, проветривание и переподготовка убежищ, приведение в полную готовность таких систем, как метро в Москве, Петербурге и других больших городах. Ведь если что-то взрывается сверху, не надо далеко ходить, как в Киеве и в Харькове, гораздо безопаснее, если вы с семьей находитесь в метро, даже если это неудобно – спать на платформе и ходить по очереди в химический туалет.
Когда есть конфликт и эскалация, происходит повышение готовности, введение в строй систем гражданской обороны
Елена Рыковцева: Все как в 1941-м, мы отлично помним кадры глубокого киевского метро.
Сергей Мигдаль: Совершенно верно. Помимо того, чтобы спасти руководство и оставить его живым и действенным в случае войны, вторая реальная цель – это все-таки попытаться спасти часть обычных людей, и для этого есть бомбоубежища типа московского и киевского метро. Третья цель – это показать: мы строим это, все это есть, действует, отработано. Это как бы элемент сдерживания, который показывает противнику: видите, как нас трудно уничтожить. Вы попытаетесь, но большой шанс, что наше руководство выживет, многие люди выживут, мы нанесем ответный удар, и вам же будет хуже. Это важный элемент взаимного сдерживания, который, может быть, помогает руководителям как-то отдалить, предотвратить эскалацию, подумать и удержаться от крайних шагов.
Елена Рыковцева: Пришли очередные данные очередных закрытых опросов, они имеют прямое отношение к ведущейся войне. Смотрим эти данные.
Continuation of the discussion, watch the video