Russian Navy Trained to Strike Targets in Europe with Nuclear Missiles, Secret Documents Reveal – Executive Digest

Secret documents were released Financial Times In a possible confrontation with NATO, Russia has trained its navy to strike targets deep in Europe with missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The documents, which date between 2008 and 2014, include detailed maps of targets in Western Europe, such as the west coast of France and Barrow-in-Furness in the United Kingdom, and were prepared entirely for Russian naval officials—an invasion on the scale of Ukraine.

According to Financial TimesAn analysis of the documents shows that Russia anticipated conflict with the West beyond its immediate borders with NATO. The report indicated that Russia was planning a series of massive attacks across Western Europe. Source of documents FT West is.

The files contain a list of targets for missiles that can carry conventional or tactical nuclear warheads. The presentation shows that Russia highlights the advantages of using nuclear weapons in the early stages of a conflict. The documents also indicate that Russia is maintaining the ability to carry nuclear weapons on surface ships, which experts say significantly increases the risks of escalation or accidents.

The presentation also highlights that the Navy’s “high maneuverability” allows it to launch “sudden and preemptive strikes” and “massive missile strikes… from multiple directions.” Nuclear weapons are typically used “in combination with other means of destruction” to achieve Russian goals. Analysts who have seen the documents say the threat of Russian naval long-range missile strikes and Russia’s speed to use nuclear weapons are consistent with NATO’s assessment.

The maps, produced for presentation purposes rather than operational use, show a sample of 32 NATO targets in Europe for Russian naval fleets. Russia’s Baltic Fleet’s targets are mostly in Norway and Germany, including a naval base in Bergen, as well as radar sites and special forces installations. The Russian Northern Fleet will target industrial defense targets such as the submarine base at Barrow-in-Furness in northwest England. A target near Hull could be an industrial center, indicated by a chimney.

The presentation also explores how the theory can be applied to wars in the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and the Pacific, including scenarios with current allies such as China, Iran, Azerbaijan, and North Korea. William Alberg, a former NATO official now at the Stimson Center, noted that only a small fraction of the “hundreds, if not thousands, of targets mapped across Europe, including military targets and critical infrastructure,” were provided.

Russia’s ability to strike across Europe means that targets across the continent will be at risk once the Russian military clashes with NATO forces in the Baltic states and frontline countries like Poland. Professor Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey said: “Russia’s perception of war is total war. They see these tactical nuclear weapons as potentially decisive weapons and want to use them quickly.

Tactical nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by land or naval missiles or aircraft, have shorter ranges and are less destructive than “strategic” nuclear weapons aimed at the United States. However, they still released significantly more energy than the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened to stop Ukraine’s European allies from supporting them militarily. In May, Putin warned that European countries are “small, densely populated states”.

The documents also mention the option of a “demonstration strike” — detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area “during a period of immediate threat of aggression” before an actual conflict to scare the West. Russia has never acknowledged that such attacks are part of its doctrine. Such an attack would demonstrate “the presence and readiness to use non-strategic precision nuclear weapons” and “the intent to use nuclear weapons,” the documents said.

Alberg, former director of NATO’s Center for Arms Control, Disarmament and the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, said: “They want the fear of Russian nuclear weapons to be the magic key that unlocks Western approval.” According to the documents, Russia’s top priority in the conflict with NATO is to “weaken the enemy’s military and economic capacity”. Analysts note that Russia will attack civilian sites and critical infrastructure, as it did in Ukraine.

Fabian Hoffman, a doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo who studies nuclear energy policy, said the combination of nuclear and conventional strikes described in the presentation is “a package to signal to the enemy that things are really heating up. It would be wise to start talking to us about how we can resolve this.”

According to NATO calculations, the alliance’s countries have less than 5% of the air defense capabilities needed to defend NATO’s eastern flank against a large-scale attack by Russia. Putin said in June that Europe would be “more or less defenseless” against Russian missile attacks.

Tara Massicot, a senior expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russian strategists see nuclear weapons as central to the early stages of any conflict with NATO because of the inferiority of their conventional military resources. “They don’t have enough missiles,” he said.

The published documents also indicate that despite the 1991 nuclear disarmament agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States, Russia retains the ability to carry tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships. Among the Russian carriers of tactical nuclear weapons, Russia lists “nuclear-tipped anti-submarine missiles placed on surface ships and submarines” and “ship-based and land-based anti-aircraft missiles with nuclear weapons to defeat enemy air defense groups.”

The approval was surprising given the inherent dangers of carrying nuclear weapons at sea, even in peacetime, Alberg said. Unlike a strategic ballistic missile submarine designed to launch nuclear weapons from the depths of the ocean, a surface ship carrying nuclear weapons would be vulnerable to damage by storms or enemy attack.

Recent exercises Putin has ordered to rehearse the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the leaked documents show, are still consistent with current Russian military doctrine. In June, the Russian military practiced loading Soviet-era P-270 anti-ship missiles onto a Tarantul-class corvette in Kaliningrad, where NATO officials say Russia is storing undeclared tactical nuclear weapons. Footage of the exercises show troops from the 12th GUMO, which is responsible for nuclear weapons within the Russian Armed Forces, practicing missile maneuvers on the equipment used to move a fully armed missile with an appropriate defense force and procedures for handling nuclear weapons.