The Mysterious Shortwave Radio Station Stoking US-Russia Nuclear Fears

Shortly aft US president Donald Trump hung up a telephone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin this spring, an obscure shortwave vigor channel, broadcasting from a subject basal determination successful Russia, sprang to life.

Through a fog of static, astatine 4625 kHz connected the shortwave dial, a man’s dependable spoke successful monotone: “Nikolai, Zhenya, Tatiana, Ivan.” He repeats the message—spelled retired successful the Russian phonetic alphabet—followed by a bid of numbers and letters. The full connection reads: “NZhTI 01263 BOLTANKA 4430 9529.” What it means is anyone’s guess, but tons of radical were guessing.

This vigor station, dubbed UVB-76, has spent overmuch of 2025 broadcasting cryptic messages, unusual music, and pirate interruptions. The transmission has elicited fascination for decades. This time, however, thing is different. Now, Moscow’s web of propagandists and warmongers are abruptly fascinated by this obscure channel.

UVB-76’s existent intent is astir surely innocuous and mundane. But successful caller weeks, Moscow has capitalized connected the eerie fixation with the transmission to stoke fears of atomic armageddon.

The Buzzer

Shortwave radio, which operates connected a antithetic frequence and a wider spectrum than AM oregon FM vigor broadcasts, has ever had a peculiarly dedicated fandom. Because shortwave broadcasts tin traverse immense distances, it became a favourite mean for soldiers and spies.

Throughout the Cold War, ham vigor hobbyists searched the shortwave dial successful hunt of agencies communicating with their agents. Tune successful to the close frequency, and you could perceive a KGB serviceman speechmaking retired coded messages for their undercover operatives successful America, a Cuban quality serviceman relaying a connection to Moscow, oregon a CIA plus successful eastbound Europe trying to get successful interaction with Langley.

The extremity of the Cold War and the advent of modern exertion made unafraid connection easier—making these shortwave vigor stations largely, though not entirely, obsolete. At the aforesaid time, however, amateur vigor fans began congregating online, and they scoured for spy stations connected the vigor dial.

“What person you stumbled connected to?” reads a connection posted to funny visitors to Spynumbers.com. “Instructions to spies? Messages exchanged betwixt cause dealers? Deliberate attempts astatine deception and mis-information? Chances are, each of the above!” The website’s users kept a meticulous database of the shortwave stations that, they believed, were utilized by spooks. Operators astir the satellite logged the presumption astatine 4625 Khz arsenic “The Buzzer.”

The station, which was categorized lone arsenic “Slavic,” is thought to person travel online successful the 1970s. The information that it could beryllium heard consecutive crossed the globe—from London to Sydney—suggested that it had immoderate beauteous almighty transmitters down it. A perpetual tone, an incessant buzzing, was thought to beryllium a mode for the relation to reserve the frequency, adjacent erstwhile it wasn’t actively being used. The buzzing would infrequently stop, possibly erstwhile a week, replaced with different tones oregon a antheral speechmaking a connection utilizing the Russian phonetic alphabet. Try arsenic they might, listeners ne'er decoded those messages.

Starting successful the precocious 1990s, the presumption utilized the telephone motion УЗБ-76—later mistranslated arsenic UVB-76—although it would alteration that grip repeatedly implicit the years. Nevertheless, the incorrect rubric stuck. As did the station’s mythos, which has grown implicit the decades to effort to explicate UVB-76’s mysterious signal.

As a 2011 diagnostic successful WIRED explained, theories astir UVB-76’s existent intent went from the decidedly unsexy, specified arsenic the thought that the presumption was investigating atmospheric changes successful the ionosphere (as reported successful a 2008 world paper); to the genuinely cinematic—that it was either a mode to interaction aliens oregon a “doomsday device, which had been programmed to motorboat a question of atomic missiles astatine the US successful the lawsuit the Kremlin was flattened by a sneak attack.”

For years, the station’s main awesome emanated from a subject outpost immoderate 50 miles northbound of Moscow. When municipality explorers reached the tract successful 2011, they recovered it abandoned—but forgotten vigor instrumentality and log books suggested that it had erstwhile been the office of UVB-76. (“In general, it was boring,” the explorers wrote.) Russian broadcaster RT besides visited the tract that year, reporting that the tract was, astir likely, conscionable a mundane portion of Russia’s subject connection apparatus.

In the years since, an online assemblage has sprung up crossed YouTube, Reddit, X, VKontakte, and crossed aggregate dedicated podcasts and online forums. Its fanbase stretches crossed past buffs, ham vigor operators, and those obsessed with creepypasta. A dedicated site, Priyom.org, sprang up to meticulously catalog UVB-76’s galore mysterious messages.

With the publicity came vigor pirates, who person spent years interrupting the awesome with meowing and the set REM and person adjacent knocked it offline altogether. In astatine slightest 1 case, a frequence hijacker seemed to pass with UVB-76’s operator. (Or, possibly, different pirate.)

The online buzz has driven mainstream coverage. News outlets have, implicit the years, called the presumption “chilling” and “ghostly,” penning that it “baffles scientists.”

“It's earthy to beryllium fascinated with things you don't person a wide reply to,” says Māris Goldmanis, a historiographer who runs a website devoted to tracking these shortwave stations, including UVB-76.

The fascination with the presumption was offset lone by the information that its transmissions weren’t precise interesting. Of the hundreds of messages logged connected Priyom, nary person really been decoded. There is small uncertainty that the transmission is utilized by the Russian military, due to the fact that it has admitted arsenic much. A subject journal obliquely references the tract arsenic portion of a programme to support connection betwixt Russia’s assorted subject assets, adjacent amid warfare. “Its main extremity is so to service the Russian strategical subject vigor network,” Goldmanis says.

Given Russia’s immense territory, Goldmanis says, shortwave networks similar UVB-76 are utile for connecting far-flung outposts. “This is simply a mean peacetime operation,” helium says.

It’s intolerable to accidental whether the transmission has an axillary purpose, arsenic the Russian subject is understandably secretive astir its connection systems. That has near tons of country for speculation. This includes the unsubstantiated thought that UVB-76 was a cardinal portion of Moscow’s atomic failsafe. And it has kept increasing much popular.

Nuclear Blackmail

On December 11, 2024, UVB-76 erstwhile again sprang to life. After a quiescent month, the presumption delivered 24 transmissions successful a azygous day—a record, according to its instrumentality nine connected Russian societal media web VK. The transmissions themselves were modular fare (“alphabet,” “billiards,” oregon conscionable nonsense words), but the measurement caused a disturbance among those who show the channel.

Russian authorities quality bureau RIA-Novosti published what appears to beryllium its first-ever nonfiction connected UVB-76, summarizing the caller broadcasts and explaining to its readers that “it is called a ‘Doomsday Station’ due to the fact that it is believed to person been allegedly created arsenic portion of the Dead Hand system.”

Since aboriginal this year, RIA-Novosti has published astir 1 communicative per week connected UVB-76, suggesting its coded messages are related to rocket strikes connected Iran, the warfare successful Ukraine, and negotiations with Trump.

RT, which had erstwhile pooh-poohed the thought that UVB-76 was portion of Moscow’s atomic deterrence, began regularly posting its broadcasts connected X, penning successful April that the presumption often broadcasts “coded alerts pre-major events”—particularly astir telephone calls betwixt Trump and Putin—and suggesting that it operates arsenic a “nuke failsafe.”

Chatter astir the presumption grew connected Telegram, the messaging app fashionable successful Russia. Channels claimed that UVB-76 grew progressive “during periods of escalation” of subject enactment and that it served arsenic a benignant of oracle, sending its coded messages “before planetary events.” Some of these channels, immoderate with millions of subscribers, are themselves adjacent to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

“In the clip of hostility betwixt Russia and the West,” Goldmanis says, “such articles are perfect for mounting hostility and fear.” There is immoderate irony successful the information that Russians look to beryllium spooking themselves with tales of their ain subject communications network, but helium argues that it speaks to a deeper fearfulness successful Russia: “Fear of losing the war, fearfulness of the authorities collapse, fearfulness of Western atomic action, fearfulness of their ain authorities and military.”

All of this home shadowboxing, successful turn, drove planetary headlines. The British tabloid The Sun proclaimed that Russia’s “doomsday vigor station” had transmitted its “cryptic ‘nuke’ code.” Belgium’s Het Laatste Nieuws reported that the vigor messages had caused “heightened alertness among subject analysts worldwide.” Politika, a Serbian regular newspaper, penned a lengthy article that claimed that UVB-76 “put fearfulness successful the hearts of NATO generals and the Pentagon,” which person been powerless to ace its code. (That nonfiction was republished successful Russian by RT’s overseas translation service.)

Amid this caller attention, Moscow’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor—responsible for monitoring, regulating, and censoring each wide media, including some shortwave vigor and the internet—commented connected UVB-76 for the archetypal time. A spokesperson for the bureau didn’t accidental much, telling RT that accusation astir the frequence and its intent “is not publically available.”

As nationalist involvement increased, UVB-76 kept churning retired messages. On May 23, an relation work retired the codification “БЕЗЗЛОБИЕ,” astir translated to “the lack of malice,” and “ХРЮКОСТЯГ,” oregon “oink,” followed by a bid of numbers. This message, successful particular, caught the attraction of Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev has served arsenic some president and premier curate of Russia and present serves connected the hawkish Security Council of Russia arsenic lawman chairman. Analysts astatine the Institute for the Study of War accidental Medvedev is often deployed by the Kremlin to “inflammatory rhetoric, often including atomic blackmail, into the accusation abstraction to dispersed fearfulness among Western decision-makers and discourage aboriginal subject assistance to Ukraine.”

“Doomsday Radio: May's ‘lack of malice’ has been replaced by a fierce ‘oink,’” Medvedev wrote connected his Telegram channel. Invoking a question of Ukrainian drone attacks that had roiled Moscow, Medvedev levied thematic insults against the Ukrainians and their backers successful Europe: “Pigs,” “hogs,” and “boars.” He ended the post: “Password: ‘БЕЗЗЛОБИЕ.’ Answer: ‘ХРЮКОСТЯГ,’” the 2 UVB-76 codewords.

“Spasms of the Dead Hand”

Coincidental oregon intentional, Russia’s caller fascination with UVB-76 comes conscionable arsenic it attempts to ratchet up fearfulness of atomic armageddon. To bash that, Moscow is turning to that spot of Cold War lore: The Dead Hand.

Throughout the Cold War, determination was a pervasive thought that the Soviets had built immoderate benignant of doomsday device. Popularized by films similar Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, the thought went that Moscow had developed the quality to motorboat its ballistic missiles, adjacent if each the Communist Party enactment were dead. Such a effect could efficaciously extremity beingness connected Earth.

When those films were released, successful 1964, Moscow had nary specified program. It would instrumentality different 2 decades earlier the USSR completed its effect system, codename Perimeter.

The Russian atomic retaliation programme was not rather arsenic nefarious arsenic the movies imagined. It was not a afloat automatic atomic effect but alternatively a semiautomated strategy of existent safeguards. Perimeter, housed successful a heavy bunker successful the Ural mountains, was connected to a bid of inputs: Seismic and radiation sensors, which monitored for warhead impacts connected Soviet soil; and vigor links backmost to the Kremlin. If, and lone if, the strategy was switched on, if it detected grounds of atomic strikes, and if the connection transmission with cardinal bid was severed, Perimeter would motorboat a bid of bid rockets. These missiles, equipped with vigor transmitters, would buzz done Soviet airspace broadcasting motorboat codes to the Soviet atomic arsenal.

Perimeter was revealed successful a 1993 op-ed successful The New York Times by Bruce G. Blair, an American atomic adept who had been handed details of the programme by a Soviet scientist. He described the plan of this strategy arsenic the “spasms of the dormant hand.”

“There’s nary question successful my caput that the strategy was built,” David Hoffman, contributing exertion to The Washington Post and writer of The Dead Hand, tells WIRED. “Perimeter exists, and it was a existent strategy that was enactment connected combat work soon aft Mikael Gorbachev took bureau successful 1985.”

Hoffman, who based his publication connected extended interviews with those acquainted with the program, says determination is bully grounds that Perimeter was maintained, though switched off, aft the extremity of the Cold War. Putin’s ascent to the presidency, however, marked a “gray zone,” helium says. In caller years, Russian commanders person said that the strategy remains operational, and Moscow has upgraded the bid bunker wherever Perimeter was based.

And it was UVB-76 that thrust the Dead Hand programme backmost into the news. It’s peculiarly conspicuous because, based connected everything we cognize astir Perimeter, there’s nary mode UVB-76 has immoderate relation successful launching atomic weapons.

Goldmanis concedes that UVB-76 could surely beryllium utile if a atomic onslaught destroys Russia’s communications network, but the thought that it could automatically bid rocket launches is “neither logical nor technically possible,” helium says. (The bunker which houses Perimeter communicates with the extracurricular satellite utilizing very-low-frequency radio, not shortwave.)

So determination is nary existent enigma astir UVB-76’s relation successful Russia’s Perimeter system. The lone enigma is wherefore Russian propagandists look truthful intent connected convincing the satellite that the 2 are related.

Since its inception, the Kremlin has really been notoriously mum astir Perimeter—odd, due to the fact that portion of the inferior of specified a limb is its powerfulness to deter a archetypal strike. “It is perfectly a wholly absurd situation,” Hoffman says. But that has changed recently.

On July 31, Trump and Medvedev traded rambling posts connected their respective societal media platforms. The president fired disconnected a Truth Social station calling India and Russia “dead economies” and excoriating Medvedev to “watch his words.”

The Russian official, meanwhile, took to Telegram to pass the American of “how unsafe the non-existent ‘dead hand’ tin beryllium 😂.”

Breaking the “Nuclear Taboo”

Despite the arms contention of the Cold War, the satellite maintained an unspoken knowing that the usage of a first-strike atomic limb would beryllium immoral, irrational, and apt world-ending. Academic Nina Tannenwald calls this the “nuclear taboo.”

That taboo mostly extended to threats of atomic warfare arsenic well. Until precise recently.

Between 2022 and 2023, the Center for Strategic and International Studies tracked astir 200 instances wherever Russian officials issued threats astir the usage of atomic weapons, peculiarly arsenic it tried to dissuade Western enactment for the Ukrainian authorities amid its ill-fated invasion. That culminated successful changes to the Russian atomic doctrine past year. The caller orders, approved by Putin, let Moscow to motorboat a atomic onslaught successful effect to definite large-scale accepted attacks connected Russian territory.

“Breaking the atomic taboo—using atomic signaling and threats—is precise dangerous,” Hoffman says. It increases the likelihood of misunderstanding, misperception, and miscalculation.

While UVB-76 continued to gurgle retired messages implicit the past week, amid an bonzer gathering successful Alaska betwixt presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, speculation astir its existent intent has noticeably quieted connected pro-Kremlin channels.

Hoffman is skeptical that this astir caller fascination with UVB-76 and Perimeter is thing much than marginal, fixed that Putin himself has already begun the atomic saber-rattling. He calls it “cartoonish” by comparison. Still, Hoffman says, “the full lore of the Dead Hand is that it’s a monster retired of control.” It’s not true, of course—“it was built arsenic a retaliatory system,” helium notes, “as a 2nd strike”—but the thought of the Russian doomsday instrumentality continues to loom large.

Goldmanis came astir to a akin metaphor.

“The Dead Hand is besides a large myth,” helium says. It whitethorn beryllium based connected a existent system, but secrecy breeds mystery. Like a fabled monster successful a dark, impassible cave, fears tin provender connected themselves. “No 1 tin beryllium sure, arsenic they can't entree it.”