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In late February, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin declaration America’s surveillance equipment is on high alert that its country’s nuclear weapons are in “special combat readiness.” Hundreds of imaging satellites and other private and federal spacecraft began searching for signs of increased activity among Russia’s bombers, missiles, submarines and storage bunkers with thousands of nuclear warheads.

Image analysts said the orbital fleet has yet to detect anything worthy of concern. Reiterating the specific assessments, US and NATO officials gave no indication that Russia was preparing for nuclear war. “We haven’t seen anything that causes us to change our situation, our nuclear stance,” said Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser. told reporters on March 23.

But experts said America’s atomic watchmen have reason to continue the search. Moscow long practiced using relatively small nuclear explosions to offset battlefield losses. And some military experts are worried about what Mr. Putin might do to restore his reputation for his frustrated brutality after the setbacks in Ukraine.

If Russia were preparing for atomic war, it would normally deploy bombers to reduce their vulnerability to enemy attack, he said. Hans M. KristensenDirector of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, a private research organization in Washington. But right now, “none of that is obvious,” he said.

Since 1962, one of America’s first spy satellites not detected missile delivery and 158 nuclear warheads The US orbital surveillance forces, which Moscow sent to Cuba, increased. Today, hundreds of public and private imaging satellites Continuously scan the planet to assess crops, map cities, manage forests and, increasingly, uncover the secret affairs of nuclear states.

Russia’s arsenal exceeds The nuclear stockpiles of all other nations pose a challenge for analysts to comprehensively assess their current situation. private American firms such as maxar, Capella Space and Planet Labs They provided analysts with hundreds of close-up images of Russia’s atomic forces. Planet Labs alone has more than 200 imaging satellite constellations and he specialized reset at military sites.

The special squadron followed Russia’s nuclear forces long before the war and performed routine drills and exercises alongside maintenance work. This kind of fundamental understanding helps analysts uncover real war preparations, experts said. “You follow these things and you start to understand what normal looks like,” he said. Mark M. Lowenthal, a former CIA deputy director for analysis. “If you see a deviation, you should ask if something is up.”

Shortly after Mr. Putin’s statement, a false alarm sounded. A Twitter account, The Lookout, sent A satellite has detected two Russian nuclear submarines leaving a northwest port. London newspaper The Express, warned with the title of “strategic preparation”. The breaking news received little attention because seasoned experts realized that the submarine’s take-off was a planned exercise.

Still, Jeffrey Lewis and Michael DuitsmanSatellite imagery experts at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, California, continued to monitor Russia’s submarine fleet as their movement could provide reliable indicators of higher nuclear war readiness.

Normally, roughly half One of Russia’s submarines equipped with long-range missiles sails on scheduled patrols, while the others stay at their docks for rest, repair and maintenance. Analysts see empty piers as a warning sign.

To assess the current situation, Dr. Lewis zoomed in on a large submarine base known as Gadzhiyevo in the North Pole of Russia. images on Google Earth to show a dozen gigantic piers jutting out of the rocky fjords.

The Middlebury team reviewed a close-up image taken by Planet on March 7 that shows Russia’s four submarines next to the two piers of Gadzhiyevo. Mr Duitsman said a separate image of the entire base revealed that all active submarines were in port and showed they were not preparing for a nuclear attack. “During a higher readiness,” he said, “I would expect a few subs to be at sea.”

The team also reviewed the images. A military base in the Siberian forests where mobile launchers move long-range missiles over country roads as a defensive tactic. Images taken on March 30 by one of Capella’s radar satellites, which can see beyond the clouds as well as nightfall, show no signs of unusual activity, Duitsman said.

Finally, on the banks of the southern Volga River, the Middlebury crew looked at Saratov-63, nuclear weapons storage area for long-range missiles and the air force of Russia. There is a bomber base nearby. Images taken by Planet on March 6 revealed a snowy landscape, and Mr Duitsman said there was no evidence of high alert.

In 1998, a senior American military officer toured an underground bunker in Saratov-63 and reported that it not only possesses extremely powerful nuclear weapons, but also smaller ones, sometimes known as tactical weapons. small arms seen as They play a leading role in Russian nuclear attacks because their strength can be fractions of the destructive power of a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima, Japan, blurring the line between conventional and nuclear weapons and making them visible. more useful.

Analysts and nuclear experts say the accumulating evidence shows that Putin’s “ready to fight” declaration is not an order to prepare weapons, but rather a sign that a message of war is imminent.

Pavel PodvigThe long-time weapons researcher from Russia said the alarm most likely prepared the Russian military for the possibility of a nuclear order. Nikolai SokovA former Soviet diplomat negotiating arms control agreements agreed. “This is a signal to the chain of command and control,” he said. “It’s just like, ‘Getting attention. An order may be coming.’”

But the Middlebury Institute’s Dr. Lewis said Mr Putin’s order is sending more military personnel to central points who relay orders and messages among the dispersed forces. “So we didn’t see anything,” he said. “It was increasing the number of people in the bunkers.” He added that the practice is a standard part of how Russia is raising its nuclear readiness levels: It takes more people to conduct war preparations than to keep sites on standby.

Dr. Lowenthal, former deputy director of the CIA and now senior lecturer At Johns Hopkins, he said he found the staff aspect of Moscow’s escalation process to be most disturbing.

“We can develop a good basis for what is normal and routine in the movement of Russian nuclear weapons,” he said. “It’s the inner things that are always worrying.” After all, imaging satellites cannot see what people are doing inside buildings and bunkers.

He said the main uncertainty was the “level of automaticity” in Russia’s heightened war alerts – a topic covered in “Dead Hand”. Pulitzer Prize-winning 2009 book It described a semi-automatic system that would operate on its own should Russia’s leaders be killed. In that case, Russia’s nuclear authority would be handed over to a few low-ranking officers in a concrete bunker. It is unclear whether Moscow is based on something similar today.

Dr. “You can never be sure,” Lowenthal said, how Russia allows the use of nuclear weapons. “That’s what pisses you off.”