Russia's Vladimir Putin pictured in China with 'nuclear briefcase': What it contains

Russian President Vladimir Putin was filmed in China accompanied by officers carrying the so-called nuclear briefcase on October 18. The footage, which was released by Chinese state media, showed Putin walking to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping surrounded by security and followed by two Russian naval officers in uniform each carrying a briefcase. 

The camera zoomed in on one of the briefcases, which is believed to be the nuclear briefcase.
The nuclear briefcase is a specially outfitted briefcase that contains the codes and other materials that the Russian president would need to authorize a nuclear strike. It is always accompanied by the president, even when he is traveling abroad.

Russia's nuclear briefcase is generally carried by a naval commander. The briefcase, dubbed the "Cheget" (after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains), is always with the president but is rarely videotaped.

"There are certain suitcases without which no trip of Putin's is complete," the Kremlin correspondents of state news agency RIA said in a Telegram post alongside the footage.

In another video, Putin comes out of a conference with navy officers in Beijing, again captured just a few steps away from Putin, who grins as he walks down the stairs.

"This is not a coincidence," Rebekah Koffler, president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting and a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, told Fox News Digital.

"The Kremlin almost certainly deliberately orchestrated the filming of Putin’s version of the ‘nuclear football’ – which is almost never done — and had the Russian media, which the Kremlin controls, highlight the fact that ‘certain suitcases’ always accompany the Russian president on trips," she said. 

Putin's trip to China came at a time when he needed to rally support for his cause at home, since his invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for 20 months longer than the roughly two weeks his advisors predicted would be required to conquer Kyiv and then take control of the country. 

The US president has a similar device, dubbed the "nuclear football." The satchel holds the codes the president would use to authenticate an order to launch nuclear missiles should he or she not be at the White House.

The Ukraine war has raised tensions between Moscow and Washington to the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis just as China seeks to bolster its nuclear arsenal to accord with its status as an emerging superpower. 

On Tuesday, Russia's parliament took the first step towards revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and its top legislator warned the US that Moscow might potentially abandon the treaty entirely.

The briefcase is essentially a secure communication instrument that connects the president to his military top commanders and, from there, to rocket troops via the highly classified "Kazbek" electronic command-and-control network. Kazbek also supports the "Kavkaz" system.

With inputs from Reuters