The conversation turns to Russia's ongoing military preparations against the United States, which Lunev insists the GRU still considers an inevitable conflict. He discusses the massive underground bunker complex being constructed in the Ural Mountains, comparable in size to the Washington D.C. Beltway, designed to shelter Russia's elite during a nuclear war. He also reveals Russian training of international terrorists, including members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult responsible for the Tokyo subway attack.
Lunev discloses the existence of a Soviet seismic weapons program codenamed Mercury 18, designed to concentrate natural seismic energy and trigger earthquakes at targeted locations. He claims the devastating 1988 Spitak earthquake was a result of weapons testing and discusses the possibility of a Russian-Chinese military alliance directed against the West.
Key Moments
Inside the GRU - Lunev's actual job under TASS cover: Lunev describes his role as a colonel in the GRU - Russia's strategic military intelligence directorate - and explains it combines functions equivalent to the DIA, NSA, NRO, Special Operations Command, and all U.S. service intelligence agencies. His four years in Washington under TASS news agency cover were, in his words, spent 'spying against America.'
Underground city the size of the DC Beltway: Lunev tells Bell that beneath Moscow and in the Urals the Russian government has built bunker complexes and an underground city 'by the size of Washington, D.C. Beltway' so the Russian elite can survive a nuclear war. He frames this as direct evidence that Moscow still treats war with the United States as plannable.
Russian suitcase nukes are real - and held by Spetsnaz, not lost: Asked about the rumored hundred missing Russian suitcase-sized nuclear weapons, Lunev confirms the devices exist and were designed for special operations forces to hit hardened targets on hostile territory in a future nuclear war. He says they are not in terrorist hands - they are in the hands of GRU special operations commanders, to be used only on Moscow's order.
Mercury 18 - the Soviet seismic weapons program: Asked about exotic weapons, Lunev names a Soviet program he says he was briefed on: 'Mercury 18,' a research effort to develop seismic or tectonic weapons capable of triggering earthquakes on hostile territory - in his framing, weapons more useful than many atomic strikes.