Russia is planning a second major military base near the border with Ukraine, where Nato accuses Russian troops of helping pro-Moscow separatists fight Kiev’s forces.
The new base will house 5,000 soldiers and heavy weaponry, according to public documents and people working at the site.
It is further east than one under construction in Belgorod region reported by Reuters earlier this month but still close to the border with separatist-held parts of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, where there has been heavy fighting.
The bases are part of a Russian military build-up along a new line of confrontation with the West, running from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic in the north, which carries echoes of the Cold War-era “Iron Curtain”.
Russia has also increased its military presence in Syria.
Nato and the pro-Western government in Ukraine say Moscow uses bases on the border with the former Soviet republic as staging posts to send troops across into areas where almost 8,000 people have been killed since April last year. Moscow annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula a month earlier but denies having any troops in eastern Ukraine.
The documents show the Russian defence ministry intends to turn an old military depot in Boguchar, in Voronezh region, into a major base with dozens of buildings and special facilities for more than 1,300 armoured vehicles and ammunition. The base which includes barracks with space for 5,210 troops, warehouses, an infirmary and a training complex, will be 45 km from the Ukrainian border.
Russia beefing up military presence in Crimea, Belarus, Kaliningrad
Russian tender documents show the ministry plans to transfer a motorised rifle brigade from Nizhny Novgorod, in north-west Russia, to Boguchar along with troops trained in nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. At the Boguchar depot, a soldier said some had already arrived. “The guys from Nizhny Novgorod are already here,” he said, declining to give his name. Vehicles with servicemen were driving on the road leading to the depot. The road surface had marks left by tank tracks.
The war in Ukraine has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War.
Besides the plans for the two new bases in southern Russia, the Kremlin has moved military hardware to its Baltic enclave Kaliningrad, approved a military air base in Belarus last week, and it is beefing up its military presence in Crimea.
Russia has pulled out of the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, a post-Cold War pact that limits the deployment of troops in Europe, so it is free to move troops and hardware to its western border.