Rare images of Russian President Vladimir Putin have emerged, showing him in Beijing accompanied by his officers who were carrying the nuclear briefcase. This secure communication tool is used to order a nuclear strike and is rarely seen in public.
After a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Putin was surrounded by security personnel and followed by two Russian naval officers in uniform, each carrying a briefcase. The Russian nuclear briefcase, a critical component of the country’s nuclear command and control system, is always with the president.
The nuclear briefcase, traditionally carried by a naval officer known as the “Cheget” (named after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains), plays a vital role in linking the president to his military top brass and enabling communication with rocket forces through the highly secret “Kazbek” electronic command-and-control network, which supports another system known as “Kavkaz.”
Kremlin correspondents from the state news agency RIA posted on Telegram under the footage, “There are certain suitcases without which no trip of Putin’s is complete.”
These images are significant, as tensions between Russia and the US have escalated to their highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis due to the Ukraine war. On Tuesday, Russia’s parliament revoked the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and Moscow warned that it might abandon the pact altogether.
The State Duma, Russia’s lower house, unanimously passed a bill that revokes Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, further heightening the nuclear standoff.
It’s important to note that the US president also possesses a similar device known as the “nuclear football,” a satchel holding codes that the president would use to authenticate an order to launch nuclear missiles.