Central Nuclear Weapons Storage Sites
Identity
This record is best understood as a dispersed 12th Main Directorate (12th GUMO) network of central nuclear-weapons storage installations, not a single site. Most placemarks match public lists of national-level Object S depots, including Vologda-20/Object 957, Belgorod-22/Object 1150, Bryansk-18/Object 365, Voronezh-45/Object 387, Irkutsk-45/Object 644, Mozhaysk-10/Object 714, Lesnoy-4 (formerly Sverdlovsk-45)/Object 917, Trekhgorny-1 (formerly Zlatoust-30)/Object 936, Saratov-63/Object 1050, Komsomolsk-na-Amure-31/Object 1201, and Khabarovsk-47/Object 1200. The Sergiev Posad-15 placemark aligns instead with the 84th interservice retraining center, a confirmed 12th GUMO institution but not clearly identified in open sources as a standard national-level storage depot. ([nonproliferation.org](https://nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/op55-everything-counts.pdf))
Mission
Open sources consistently describe 12th GUMO as the organization responsible for the custody, security, transport, and handling of Russian nuclear warheads. In its 2015 NPT national report, Russia stated that all of its non-strategic nuclear weapons were kept only at centralized storage bases on national territory under a top-level security regime; a 2025 CRS report separately assessed roughly 12 national central storage sites plus 34 base-level facilities. Pavel Podvig’s work indicates that, in peacetime, warheads are normally stored separate from delivery systems and moved by 12th GUMO units to operational forces only during heightened readiness or wartime procedures. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R45861/R45861.16.pdf))
Geographic coverage
The network is geographically distributed to support western, central, and Far Eastern nuclear-capable forces while keeping warheads away from day-to-day operating bases. CNS mapping links Belgorod-22 to Morozovsk and Novorossiysk, Bryansk-18 to Shatalovo/Kozelsk/Shaykovka, Saratov-63 to Engels and Tatishchevo, Irkutsk-45 to Sredniy/Novosibirsk/Irkutsk/Sibirskiy/Solnechny, Komsomolsk-na-Amure-31 to Khurba/Ukrainka/Fokino/Mongokhto/Vilyuchinsk, and Khabarovsk-47 to Khabarovsk-41/Chita-46/Gorny/Vozdvizhenka. This supports the inference that the placemark set represents regional reserve-and-distribution nodes for Strategic Rocket Forces, Aerospace Forces, and Navy users under unified 12th GUMO custody. ([nonproliferation.org](https://nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/op55-everything-counts.pdf))
Infrastructure and security
Public technical descriptions characterize a national-level storage site as a larger secured perimeter containing multiple separated bunkers; one FAS study described each site as having roughly half a dozen separated bunkers and noted that some sites received U.S.-funded security upgrades. U.S.-Russian CTR/MPC&A cooperation in the 1990s and 2000s provided fencing, inventory-management equipment, training, and later comprehensive security systems; Stimson reports that U.S. personnel were granted limited access to 12th GUMO warhead storage sites from 2003 to 2012, while CRS documentation says nine 12th Main Directorate sites received MPC&A upgrades. Russia also stated in 2015 that the total number of nuclear storage sites had fallen fourfold since 1991. ([fas.org](https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Non_Strategic_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf))
Confidence and gaps
Open sources do not fully agree on the current roster and status of these central sites. CRS in 2025 still referred to about 12 national central storage sites, while the 2024-2025 Nuclear Notebook literature used a lower estimate of about 10 national-level central sites; older historical lists also include Krasnoyarsk-26, but recent public inventories do not consistently retain it, so its current status is not publicly confirmed. Likewise, some placemarked military-unit numbers in the supplied metadata are not corroborated by the stronger open sources used here, so they should be treated as unverified unless independently confirmed. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R45861/R45861.16.pdf))