You're put in a van with your team for up to three hours. 'Just getting there was several days' work. From 2003 to 2012 and with Russian security services watching, staff visited and secured Russia's most sensitive sites classified bases that held thousands of nuclear warheads inherited after the Soviet Union's collapse, which were vulnerable to thieves and terrorists. government's Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Moon led nuclear security efforts through the U.S. Even within Russia, it was not permitted to utter the words '12th Main Directorate,'' said Moon. Someone who wasn't even allowed to have their picture taken in the former Soviet Union. Bill Moon is the former division chief of global nuclear security at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.'Just meeting them the first time, that was, you know, like meeting a ghost.

Newsy sat down with top nuclear weapons experts who knew them.

They protect and maintain Russia's nuclear arsenal, keeping custody of a weapon until the moment it takes off.

Most of the world has never heard of the 12th Main Directorate, but they are the secretive forces that Vladimir Putin invokes every time he threatens to deploy nuclear weapons.

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