12th Chief Directorate - Security

Security

Each base is heavily guarded. The guards belong to two independent organizations: some to the KGB, and some to the 12th Chief Directorate itself. This arrangement is made so that guards could not make any sinister agreements among themselves. Moreover, guards from the 12th GU MO are organized into a separate battalion which makes them independent from those dealing with nuclear weapons inside. Each arsenal base is encircled by barbed wire carrying current, by various electronic and laser movement detection devices, by border furrow, and sometimes even by mine fields in between. Guard dogs are also used in some cases. In addition to an outer guarding perimeter there is also an inner guarding perimeter, which encircles the nuclear depot (its “technical zone”), where only authorized officers could have access. Even when it is needed to bring in some truck to load or to unload, the truck’s driver has to get out and then some authorized officer would replace the driver to drive the truck into the technical zone.

The technical zone itself is also separated into several restricted zones of various levels of access in accordance with actual levels of security clearance of staff admitted there. Inside such an inner perimeter all technical premises where nuclear warheads are being kept and maintained, are normally buried deep underground and usually equipped with full anti-atomic protection; for example, typical weight of steel safe-like hermetic doors to the inner premises is over 40 tons. These premises, as well as command posts, could likely survive a thermo-nuclear explosion and the officers there could still be able to deliver their warheads in such conditions.