RUSSIA BUILDING MAMMOTH UNDERGROUND COMPLEX IN URALS
April 16, 1996
By: New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
MOSCOW -- In a secret project reminiscent of the chilliest days of
the Cold War, Russia is building a mammoth underground
military complex in the Ural Mountains, Western officials and
Russian witnesses say.
Hidden inside Yamantau mountain in the Beloretsk area of the southern
Urals, the project involved the creation of a huge complex, served by a
railroad, a highway, and thousands of workers.
The project, some Russian officials say, was begun during the era of
Leonid Brezhnev, when the Soviet Union was locked in an arms race
with the United States, the Communist Party ruled the country, and the
military budget seemingly knew no bounds.
Russia's decision to proceed with the costly venture underscores the
continuing influence of the military at a time when the government is
struggling to pay back wages to its workers and to cope with a growing
budget deficit.
The construction of the project, which has been observed by American
spy satellites, mystifies American specialists, who speculate that it may
be anything from an underground nuclear command post to a secret
weapons production plant.
But while there is uncertainty over the purpose of the project, it has
already become a politically delicate issue for the Clinton
administration.
The United States is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help
the cash-starved Russian government dismantle old nuclear weapons.
To win congressional approval for the money, the Clinton administration
has had to certify that the Russians are not undertaking new military
projects that go beyond their defensive needs.
The project is also being carried out despite complaints from members
of Russia's Parliament that the government does not have the money to
comply with new treaties slashing strategic arms and mandating the
destruction of chemical weapons.
"We can't say with confidence what the purpose is, and the Russians
are not very interested in having us go in there," a senior American
official said in Washington. "It is being built on a huge scale and
involves
a major investment of resources. The investments are being made at a
time when the Russians are complaining they do not have the
resources to do things pertaining to arms control."
The Russian Defense Ministry refuses to say anything about the project,
which is proceeding with virtually no public debate.
Asked to respond to written questions, the Defense Ministry replied: "The
practice does not exist in the Defense Ministry of Russia of informing
foreign mass media about facilities, whatever they are, that are under
construction in the interests of strengthening the security of Russia."
The Defense Ministry also declined to say whether Parliament has been
informed about the details of the project, like its purpose and cost,
saying only that it receives necessary military information.
For all the secrecy surrounding the Yamantau project, it is too vast to
escape notice by the local press, through the nature of the facility has
generally remained unclear.
The project has been variously described by present and former
Russian officials as a mining site, a repository for Russian treasures, a
food storage area, a dump for nuclear materials, and a bunker for
Russia's leaders in case of nuclear war.
According to a report in Sovetskaya Rossiya, the project involves
construction of a railroad, a modern highway and towns for tens of
thousands of workers and their families.
"The complex is as big as the Washington area inside the Beltway," said
an American official familiar with intelligence reports.
Whether the project is worrisome from a military perspective is a
question that divides American specialists.
Senior Pentagon officials say they believe that it will serve as a
command and control center for nuclear weapons and a bunker for
military leaders.
According to this view, the project appears to be defensive in nature.
During the Cold War, the United States also developed a system of
underground and airborne command posts, though the government is
no longer undertaking major new projects in this area.
Some officials believe that the Russian project may even make the
military balance more stable by reducing the Russian military's worries
about a surprise attack.
But other top Clinton administration officials are more worried, asserting
that the Russians have refused to provide a full accounting of the
project.
Recalling the underground sites that North Korea has built, these
officials fear that the Russian project may encompass weapons
production facilities as well as other military programs that the Russian
military wants to keep from American spy satellites.
"It is a possible command and control center," a senior administration
official said. "It is a possible project to maintain the capability to
carry out
wartime production after a nuclear strike. It is a possible storage area
for
weapons they do not want us to know about. If it is only command and
control, why aren't they more transparent about it? It would help to know
more."
A further complication is American legislation authorizing money for
dismantling Russian nuclear weapons, which is sponsored by two
politically powerful lawmakers: Sens. Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia,
and Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana.
To prevent the Russians from taking advantage of millions of dollars in
American assistance to subsidize their military programs, the law
requires that the administration certify that the Russians are "forgoing
any military modernization program that exceeds legitimate defense
requirements," "forgoing the replacement of destroyed weapons of
mass destruction," and complying with arms control treaties.
The administration recently renewed this certification, but the Russian
secrecy surrounding the project worries American advocates of the aid.
"The toughest question we can get from the Congress when we ask
them for funds to help disarm and dismantle the Russian strategic
arsenal is why are they using their meager rubles to build such a thing
as Yamantau mountain," a Pentagon official said.
The project was also a concern for the Bush administration and was
raised in diplomatic channels by James A. Baker III, who was then
secretary of state.
Some enterprising Russian journalists have sought to puncture the
official secrecy.
According to local press reports, Gen. L. Tsirkunov, the director of the
project, said in 1992 that he was building an enterprise named the Ural
Mining and Ore Dressing Combine.
That set off fears that it was a nuclear waste site, prompting an open
letter from local ecologists, religious figures, and politicians.
While the Russian military was not forthcoming, a former communist
official in the region insisted that the project was an underground
shelter
for Russia's leadership in case of nuclear war.
And in 1994, a journalist from a local newspaper described how he
climbed through the splendor of birch forests and a carpet of green
moss only to stumble across a huge hole in the ground and a vast
construction site, including barracks and a helicopter landing pad.
"There was so much iron junk down there, from water mains to rail car
wheels," the journalist, N. Starkov, wrote in the local newspaper
Beloretsky Rabochy. "Good Lord. How did it get there? The scale was
enormous."
Referring to the mountain by its nickname, he added: "It sounds crazy, of
course, but we visited the junkyard that today crowns Yaman."
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