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Certain buried or otherwise concealed containers used by the KGB to cache items such as shortwave radio receivers and cryptographic materials were booby-trapped with an explosive device known as Molniya ("lightning"). A sequence of specific actions had to be taken in the correct order to render the device safe prior to moving or opening the container, or the device would detonate. This detonation was designed to be highly lethal to anyone in the immediate proximity, as well as being sufficient to destroy all materials in the cache.

Large arms caches were allegedly hidden in many countries for the planned terrorism acts. They were booby-trapped with "Molniya". One of such cache, which was identified by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin, exploded when Swiss authorities tried to remove it from woods near Berne^[1][2]

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