A terrifying secret death list has emerged of locations in the UK that the Russian navy would attack with nuclear missiles in the event of a war with NATO.
According to the leaked documents, key targets for Putin’s forces in the British Isles include a shipyard in Cumbria and an undisclosed location near Edinburgh.
A total of 32 targets in Europe are named as potential targets for the Russian Navy in the dossier, which predates the invasion of Ukraine, Financial Times defeated.
The maps in the files show targets outside Western Europe and around the world, including Romania and Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, China, North and South Korea, and Japan.
The unnamed target in Cumbria could be the Royal Navy’s submarine yard at Barrow-in-Furness, while a shipyard at Rosyth, just outside the Scottish capital, where the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were built, could be the target there. FT defeated.
A terrifying secret hit list of locations in the UK that the Russian navy would attack with nuclear missiles in the event of a war with NATO has emerged. Pictured: Russian soldiers load an Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile launcher as part of a Russian military exercise designed to train troops in the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The secret files were compiled by Vladimir Putin’s Russian troops before the invasion of Ukraine
The unnamed target in Cumbria could be the Royal Navy’s submarine yard at Barrow-in-Furness, experts believe. Pictured: BAE Systems, where many of the ships are built
Analysts believe the Rosyth Dockyard, used by the Royal Navy, could be the target just outside Edinburgh
The dossier revealed that Moscow would be ready to use nuclear weapons in the early stages of a conflict against its opponents. Pictured~: An artist’s impression of a nuclear explosion
It shows that Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons against its opponents at an early stage of a conflict.
The dossier of 29 documents, compiled between 2008 and 2014, shows that Russia has the capacity to transport nuclear weapons on ships, despite the risk of accidents this could entail.
In 1991, the Soviet Union and the US signed an agreement to phase out such ships.
According to the document, the Navy is prepared for ad hoc attacks, preemptive strikes and “massive missile attacks . . . from various directions.”
Experts who have reviewed the dossier said it matches NATO analysts’ views on the threat posed by Putin’s regime, its ability to strike anywhere in Europe and how quickly Russia would resort to nuclear weapons.
The country’s Baltic Fleet, based in Kaliningrad, would be in an excellent position to launch weapons towards France and Germany, the dossier said.
Former NATO official William Alberque, now at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, said that while the maps, which were created for instructional rather than operational use, show 32 targets, the sample is only a small portion of “hundreds if not thousands of targets that have been mapped across Europe … including military and critical infrastructure targets.”
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, warned that Russia sees nuclear weapons as “war-winning weapons.”
A warning to the West: Russian forces conducted exercises earlier this month with a MiG-31 aircraft and missiles
The missiles can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads
The exercises were intended to prepare the army and air force for the use of nuclear weapons in combat.
A Russian nuclear-capable Iskander-M missile fired from a mobile launcher, undated
He said, ‘They’re going to want to use them, and they’re going to want to use them very quickly.’
Tactical nuclear weapons are less destructive than the larger “strategic” weapons that can hit targets at long range, but are nevertheless more powerful than bombs dropped on the ground. Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
The list was made public because Russia is openly trying to intimidate the West.
Earlier this month it was reported that Russian troops practiced placing dummy warheads on launchers during the latest nuclear weapons exercises. These exercises were intended to threaten the West for its support for Ukraine.
Footage showed a military unit equipped with Iskander-M operational-tactical missile systems carrying out the third phase of exercises ordered by Vladimir Putin.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the exercises will prepare the army and air force for the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons in combat.
This involves equipping launch vehicles with missiles and ‘stealthily advancing to designated positions in preparation for carrying out electronic launches’.
In an earlier rehearsal, Putin’s forces conducted nuclear weapons exercises with huge mobile Yars rocket launchers, each equipped with warheads six times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
A Russian nuclear-capable Iskander-M missile is launched, no date given
Naval forces conducted similar exercises, practicing “pushing the button” on a warship believed to be in the Baltic Sea.
The exercises came as the US announced new sanctions against the Kremlin, prompting Russian Security Council Vice Chairman Dmitry Medvedev to declare that Moscow needed to inflict “maximum damage” on the US and its “f***ing allies” as tensions escalated between Russia and Ukraine’s foreign allies.
Russian ally Belarus was also involved in the tactical nuclear tests.
Putin has supplied Belarus with such weapons.
Moscow claims Putin ordered the tactical nuclear exercises to ‘calm heated minds in Western capitals’
Conventional versions of the missile have been used in Ukraine.
Troops were also spotted loading a missile onto a MiG-31 as part of the exercise.
Moscow claims that Putin ordered the tactical nuclear exercises to “calm down heated discussions in Western capitals.”
This follows earlier references by French President Emmanuel Macron to sending European troops to Ukraine.
Former British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron also said Kiev had the right to use London-supplied weapons to attack targets in Russia.
Both statements have angered belligerent Putin, who is struggling to make progress with his invasion of Ukraine.
The Iskander-M used in the most recent exercises is a short-range ballistic missile system capable of carrying both conventional and non-strategic (battlefield) warheads.
It is one of the most advanced tactical missile systems in the Russian arsenal. It has a range of 400-500 kilometers and reaches speeds of up to Mach 6-7.
