New photos appear to show that Russia has upgraded a nuclear weapons storage bunker in its westernmost region of Kaliningrad near the Polish border, according to a report.

Newly published satellite images appear to reveal that the Russian storage facility has been deepened and covered with a new concrete roof in recent months, British newspaper The Guardian has reported, citing the Federation of American Scientists.

The daily quoted Hans Kristensen, a director at the Federation, as saying that the facility in Russia’s Baltic coast enclave between Poland and Lithuania “has all the fingerprints of typical Russian nuclear weapons storage sites.”

Russia upgrading nuclear weapons storage bunker in Kaliningrad. Story by @julianborger in @guardian https://t.co/oX1m5l1Uih My original story with satellite photo analysis is here https://t.co/O5bmxihIW2 pic.twitter.com/H64ONhHR62 — Hans Kristensen (@nukestrat) June 18, 2018

Kristensen said, as quoted by The Guardian on its website, that “there is a heavy-duty external perimeter of multilayered fencing” and “triple fencing” around the bunker.

The work on the bunker began in 2016, The Guardian reported.

According to Poland’s niezalezna.pl website, the bunker is located 50 km from the Polish border.

“It’s a site we have been monitoring for quite some time and there have been some upgrades in the past but nothing as dramatic as this one,” The Guardian quoted Kristensen as saying. “This is the first time we’ve seen one of the nuclear bunkers being excavated and apparently renovated.”

Kristensen told the paper: “These pictures don’t prove that there are nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad now, but they do show it is an active site.”

He said it was unclear what kind of warheads the renovated bunker is meant to serve, The Guardian reported.

In February, Russian daily Vedomosti reported that the necessary infrastructure had been put in place for the deployment of Iskander-M missile systems, according to niezalezna.pl.

A Russian military expert was quoted as saying in November that Russia would aim its Iskander-M missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave at a US military base in Redzikowo, northern Poland.

(gs/pk)

Source: niezalezna.pl, theguardian.com