Vladimir Putin seen with ‘nuclear briefcase’ in China: Its history, what it contains

What is the ‘nuclear briefcase’?

Also known as the ‘Cheget’, named after a mountain in Russia, the briefcase is part of a larger system in place for authorising the launch of nuclear strikes. It’s part of a secured communication setup, meant to convey orders for a nuclear strike to the rocket forces of the country.

The communication among the forces is done via the ‘Kazbek’ electronic command-and-control network. Kazbek supports another system, known as ‘Kavkaz’.

Apart from the Russian President, the Defence Minister and the Chief of General Staff have a briefcase each, and the three are supposed to coordinate in case of a potential order to strike. The President takes the briefcase on his visits abroad as well.

Has the nuclear briefcase ever come close to being used?

According to the US-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (CACNP), the first and only known instance of a nuclear briefcase being “opened” during a crisis was in 1995. A 1998 report in The Washington Post on the event said the briefcase was “a product of the final phase of the Cold War, during the tense early 1980s, when Soviet leaders feared a sudden attack launched from Europe or nearby oceans. They needed a remote command system to cut down reaction time.”

The briefcases were first put into service just around the time Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev took office (1990-91). By 1995, Boris Yeltsin had succeeded him.

CACNP notes that on January 25, 1995, Russian officers at the Olenegorsk Radar Station in the northwestern region of Russia detected the “launch” of a rocket off Norway’s northern coast and mistook it for a hostile American missile.

In reality, it was the Black Brant XII, an aeronautical research rocket sent to study the Northern Lights phenomenon. Even though the joint US-Norway project had been announced earlier, Russians were not aware of it and had their strategic forces put on high alert. This is when the briefcases were handed to the leaders to plan a response.

Eventually, the nature of the launch became clear to the Russians and the attack was held. The possibility of a strike emerging and the standing down of forces all happened within a few minutes.

How does the system work, exactly?

Once radar operators sent out alerts of possible enemy action, the Russian electronic command-and-control networks were activated.

“The duty general received his information from the radar operator on a special notification terminal, Krokus. He then passed it to the Kavkaz, a complex network of cables, radio signals, satellites and relays that is at the heart of the Russian command and control,” the Post’s report notes.

The alert then reached the three nuclear briefcases. “Yeltsin immediately got on the telephone with the others holding the black suitcases, and they monitored the rocket’s flight on their terminals,” the Post’s report added. Yeltsin later announced that he had used the nuclear briefcase for the first time.

A Russian TV outlet showed the inside of the older briefcases in 2019. It had several buttons, including a white one to give the go-ahead to launch a strike and a red one to stop the order.

Do other countries have such a briefcase?

Yes, the American President has a similar briefcase officially called the Presidential Emergency Satchel. It was nicknamed the ‘football’ after a 1960s mission called ‘Dropkick’ (a term related to American football). It is thought to have begun in the era of John F Kennedy, who was concerned about how in the era of a Cold War between the two superpowers of the time (the US and USSR), orders for a nuclear strike would be verified quickly.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation states that the football includes information on retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, and a three-by-five-inch card with authentication codes – called the ‘biscuit’. Through this, the President can authorise a nuclear attack, which is then carried out by the military – similar to the Russian system. The Vice President also has a briefcase near her, in case the President is incapacitated or has died.

A watchdog of the US Defence Department was also entrusted in 2021 to assess the safety protocols surrounding the football. It followed reports that during the January 2021 riots at the US Capitol, in which around 2,000 people entered the Capitol building illegally, the Vice President’s football was not too far from the commotion.

In November 2017, when Trump was in Beijing to meet Xi Jinping, a Chinese security official reportedly got into a tussle with a US military aide carrying the briefcase and attempted to halt their movement.

Under some past presidents, the codes have been misplaced at times. Jimmy Carter once left the codes in his jacket pocket and it was sent to the dry cleaners. Bill Clinton lost the codes for several months. When Ronald Reagan was admitted to a hospital in 1981 following an assassination attempt, the biscuit was tossed into a trash can when medical staff removed his clothes. The FBI later recovered it and returned the codes to the White House.