Spoiler Alert - the button isn't red!

A visit to the Ukrainian city of Kiev may seem an unlikely place to visit for some but as the gateway to the Chernobyl zone and a city full of religious and communist-era sites, it was also rather strangely satisfying to eat a chicken Kiev in Kiev, box ticked! But one excursion which caught my eye was the Strategic missile forces museum which was sited some 3-4 hours drive south of the city. Would spending the best part of eight hours in a minibus be worthwhile? Several companies offer day trips with many departing from Kiev railway station with myself using - https://www.chernobylwel.com/tour/10/missile-base-tour

In the cold war era, Ukraine held a third of all the Soviet Union nuclear weapons with the headquarters of the 43rd Red Banner Rocket Army in this region based at Pervomaisk. The HQ then had links to ten Unified Command Posts (UCP) hidden in the countryside which in turn connected to the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (IBM) silos.

This UCP at Pobuzke was in operation from 1978 to 1992 before being decommissioned when Ukraine won its independence with the missiles returned to Russia and the site saved as a museum in 2001. This UCP site had been known as the 46th Missile Division.

As you would expect, the last few miles of the journey are along small country roads in what seems the middle of nowhere. Pulling into the car park, all you can see are a small number of inconspicuous buildings but of course this was always the idea, to hide the presence from overflying spy satellites

Walking into one of the buildings we descended down a flight of steps and was confronted with a 155-meter long underground tunnel flanked by air conditioning conduits and looms of cables before reaching a 750 kg blast door which led to the top tier of twelve which made up the Unified Command Post.

We learned it was a 33-meter vertical metal cylinder weighing some 125 tonnes which sat within a bigger vertical concrete container connected by what we could call shock absorbers, a bit like those found in a car, so in the event of a hit during an air raid or even from an atomic blast, the UCP should have kept its integrity. The very top cover of the UCP had a layer of honey wax so to stop any heat signature while lots of redundancy was built into the electrical systems so to avoid any IT failures. The generators had enough fuel for 45 days.

Each of these UCPs cost millions in the days of austerity under communist rule. But what was amusing was the story of a visiting retired US intelligence officer who made the comment that the US knew of its location as the spy satellite cameras picked up the camouflage net draped across the top cover, which suggested there had to be something important below.

Next, we squeezed into a lift one at a time which took us down to level 11 and the control room. Two commanders would stay in this room working a 6 hours shift with no eating or drinking allowed and had been hand-picked with good education and a strong mentality. The Soviet machine had to know if the order was given, there would be no hesitation in launching the missiles. The officers would have had no contact with the outside world, no knowledge of recent events or news of any kind, only on what their command centre told them.

The bottom level is a crew quarter with the idea in heightened periods of tension, a crew could survive here for 45 days even if on the surface everywhere had taken a hit by a nuclear warhead. Three commanders would typically be deployed in this scenario with the reasoning apart from allowing periods of sleep, if one cracked under the pressure, the other officer could step in as two were needed to operate the launch systems.

So we now come to the missile launch itself which would have sent ten SS24 missiles from the surrounding silos with a range of 10,000 kilometers hurtling towards Europe and the eastern seaboard of the United States with the latter taking only 25 minutes flight time. With each missile then releasing a further ten individual nuclear warheads before crashing into the ground.

The UCP control room has two commander positions which after the authorisation codes having been validated and the launch system activated by the turning of the keys, the actual launch would of been triggered by the pressing of a GREY not red button at each commander’s position. It would have been impossible for one person to press both buttons at the same time.

The experience is heightened by the fact that the UCP is still powered so many of the control panels are still illuminated. There were five in my group and was rather surprised I was the only one which went for the “I pressed the big not so red button” selfie!

The building above the UCP has been turned into a museum with models, artifacts, and information although the labels were in Ukrainian while other rooms were dedicated to other nuclear events and past conflicts. Down in the UCP, we were accompanied by a retired commander who actually worked at the site but as part of the tour, we had a translator (guide) as he didn’t speak English. So be warned if you visit independently, I get the impression it would be very much hit and miss as in finding an English speaking guide on site.

Once back on the surface you are taken to a silo-based missile launcher which has been partially filled in but still looks the part as well as seeing the top of the UCP once covered by that camouflage net! The other nine missile silos were scattered in and around the local area.

You can also see the vehicle loaders and transporters which were used to move the missiles although transportation by train was another option back in the day.

Finally around the main museum buildings are various rocket parts and different types of missiles including the massive SS19 Satan ICM as well as a line of tanks, armoured guns, and military vehicles. If you like this sort of stuff you will be in heaven, trust me.

Some may see this as dark tourism and a reminder of the Cold War era where tensions were high and were no laughing matter. But let’s not forget, there are still commanders sat out there today in certain countries awaiting the launch order so for me was a fascinating insight into this secret world.