Russia’s Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and the Baltic states, has been a focal point in tensions between Russia and the West, CNN reported.
It said new satellite imagery and analysis from ImageSat International, a commercial satellite firm, appeared to confirm that a major modernisation was under way in at least four locations throughout the Kaliningrad region, which it said was Russia's strategic outpost on NATO's doorstep.
The US-based defenseone.com website reported in July that satellite photos at the time showed new structures and other bunker improvements in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad made in the run-up to a NATO summit.
Those images showed that Russia made several improvements to a munitions storage site in Baltiysk, near the Polish border, between March and June, according to defenseone.com.
The latest upgrades include fresh work at what analysts have identified as the Kaliningrad nuclear weapons storage site, CNN reported.
Images captured between July 19 and October 1 indicate work on an exposed bunker under renovation that appears to conceal activity underneath, the broadcaster said.
It added that another set of images showed 40 new bunkers under construction at a military storage area near the Russian Baltic port of Primorsk.
Further sets of images appear to show upgrades to the Chkalovsk and Chernyakhovsk air bases in the Kaliningrad exclave, according to CNN.
The Chernyakhovsk air base, which houses the 152nd Missile Brigade of the Russian military, received nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in February, the broadcaster reported on its cnn.com website.
A Russian military expert was in November quoted as saying that Russia would aim its Iskander-M missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave at a US military base in Redzikowo, northern Poland.
Countries neighbouring Russia, among them Poland, have long warned that the Kremlin is destabilising the situation in the Kaliningrad region, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency has reported.
(gs/pk)
Source: fronda.pl, cnn.com