A joint investigation by Britain’s The Sunday Times and Denmark’s Danwatch, with the Dossier Center, found that Russia has extensively modernized Object 1335, codenamed Grot, an underground command center buried hundreds of meters inside Mount Kosvinsky in the Sverdlovsk region. Reporters reviewed nearly 2.5 million procurement documents.

Between 2018 and 2024, the Defense Ministry placed thousands of orders for the site, including more than 22,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel, over 56,500 tonnes of cement, 600 kilometers of cable and 182 ventilation units with filters against chemical, biological and radioactive contamination.
Experts link the work to the modernization of Perimetr, the so-called “Dead Hand” system designed to guarantee nuclear retaliation if the leadership is wiped out. “The simplest explanation is that the Russians are probably putting the Dead Hand back into operation,” said Stanford’s Jeffrey Lewis. The Kremlin did not respond to inquiries.
Not all experts agree with the investigation’s conclusions: Russian nuclear forces expert Pavel Podvig said Perimetr had never been deactivated and is not an automatic system, while Russian academic Alexei Arbatov called such reports speculation.