Authorities successful Russia’s northwestern Leningrad portion announced plans connected Thursday to due underground spaces, including flat gathering basements, for usage arsenic weaponry shelters.
“There’s nary clip for disputes now,” Leningrad portion Governor Alexander Drozdenko wrote connected Telegram, adding that the spaces volition beryllium repaired and prepared to structure the region’s 2 cardinal residents “in the lawsuit of an emergency.”
Drozdenko said the determination situation halfway would soon formalize the determination to equip the shelters, either permanently oregon temporarily. The Leningrad portion encircles St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
While helium did not elaborate connected the urgency, the announcement comes days aft President Vladimir Putin lowered Russia’s threshold for utilizing atomic weapons, a determination wide seen arsenic retaliation for the White House giving Ukraine’s subject support to onslaught targets wrong Russia with long-range weapons it supplied.
Earlier connected Thursday, Ukraine said that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic rocket for the archetypal clip during the war, though anonymous Western officials cited successful media reports disputed the claim.
The Leningrad region’s administrative center, Gatchina, is astir 800 kilometers (500 miles) northbound of the Ukrainian borderline and has been targeted by Ukrainian drones implicit the past year. However, it remains outside the range of U.S.-supplied ATACMS and U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.
Last year, Russian authorities ordered upgrades to Soviet-era weaponry shelters crossed the country, galore of which had fallen into disrepair, according to officials who spoke with The Moscow Times.
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