Russia's doomsday radio is transmitting again and no one knows why

The urban legend of UVB-76 or the Doomsday Radio refuses to die. On June 4, 2025, the station broadcast codewords "azotobak" and “osholin” from 4625 kHz frequency, as Trump and Putin discussed on a phone call about a possible retaliation by Russia against Ukraine. The broadcast is cryptic and has no widely accepted public meaning.

Notably, this station also broadcast twice during the last White House call on May 19. What followed is a mixture of paranoia, speculation and renewed obsession with one of the Cold War's most persistent conspiracy theories, a radio signal that has a digital cult.

Interpreting these broadcasts

“UVB-76 isn’t obsolete — it’s redundancy. Shortwave can go where satellites can’t, and it’s immune to hacking.”

said Professor of Electronics and Radio Systems Dr. David Stupples, City University London. During the Cold War, Soviet Spies were instructed via short-wave radio. They were "Numbers stations” that were transmitting encrypted numbers to the spies across the globe.

To ordinary people, these are meaningless noise to the ear, because they have no clear public meaning. The exact purpose of the broadcast remains classified. Started operating in 1997 during the fall of Soviet Russia, for three and a half decades, the monotonous buzz of UBV-76 had been around regularly and irregularly. Occasionally unavailable for longer periods. Because of its transmission, which is broken, humming, followed by unintelligible words and bursts of cryptic numbers, it has come to be known as the infamous ‘Buzzer’.

“It may be part of a strategic communications grid, like a heartbeat signal. If it stops or changes, it could trigger military protocols,” said Pavel Podvig, a researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research on nuclear forces.

There are online communities, Discord servers, Reddit threads, and YouTube live streams dedicated to tracking transmission from the Buzzer. A group of collective shortwave listeners at Priyam.org detected the 2025 transmission quickly.

According to the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences, an observatory is measuring changes in the ionosphere, which is operating at the frequency of 4625 kHz.

There is another theory that posits these transmissions are military communications.

According to a report by the BBC, it is headquartered near St Petersburg, 876H+F53 Kerro, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, in the station "MDZhB”, which no one has claimed ownership of. The report from the BBC speculates that it is connected to a Perimeter automatic nuclear retaliatory "dead man's switch" system, ensuring a retaliatory response in case of a decapitation strike.

"There’s absolutely no information in the signal," said David Stupples, Professor of Electronics and Radio Systems, City University London.

However, some people claim that it is another psyops mission by Russia's deep state, following the setback faced by the Ukrainian drone strike. Because Russian mouthpiece Russia Today was calling it Doomsday, intentionally, instead of Buzzer or UBV-76.

a list connecting with the time of the transmission and major developments surrounding Russia in geopolitics. Photograph: (X| @JasonBurman2)

Another claims that if it were top secret, then no one would be able to tune in and listen to it.

Another drew up a list connecting with the time of the transmission and major developments surrounding Russia in geopolitics. Despite numerous theories, there is no definitive explanation about the Doomsday Station

Thousands of fans of the Buzzer or UVB-76, there is not even an ounce of credible information that can be attributed to it, and this just feeds into its legend. The resurgence in frequent activities of UVB-76 during pivotal moments in 2025 does make these conspiracy theories more captivating.