A newly added air defense system. A distinctive security checkpoint. And a triple fence around a bunker.
These new security features and other upgrades at a munitions depot in central Belarus reveal that Russia is building facilities there that could house nuclear warheads. If Russia does move weapons to this location, it would mark the first time it has stored them outside the country since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia already has nuclear warheads on its own soil that are close to Ukraine and NATO countries, but by basing some in Belarus, Russia appears to be trying to accentuate its nuclear threat and bolster its nuclear deterrent.