Russia has trained its navy to target European countries including the UK with nuclear missiles as tensions over Ukraine continue to spike, alarming new analysis has suggested.
Maps indicate Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria is one of multiple sites Russia is focusing on, according to secret files seen by the Financial Times, along with Hull and HMNB Clyde in Scotland.
The documents, detailed in a presentation for Russian officers that predates Vladimir Putin’s invasion of February 24, 2022, suggest Moscow has rehearsed the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the initial stages of a war with a major world power.
Worryingly, it appears that Russia is envisioning a conflict stretching well beyond its current borders with NATO.
Files, drawn up between 2008 and 2014, comprise a list of missiles capable of carrying either conventional or tactical nuclear weapons – although Russian military officers stress the advantages of using nuclear strikes initially.
The documents note the “high manoeuvrability” of the navy, permitting it to conduct “sudden and pre-emptive blows” and “massive missile strikes . . . from various directions”. They further emphasise that nuclear weapons are “as a rule” designated for use “in combination with other means of destruction” in order to achieve Russia’s goals.
Maps, made for presentational as opposed to operational use, include a list of 32 NATO targets including Barrow-in-Furness – where Britain is building a fleet of Astute-class nuclear submarines.
The presentation also refers to the idea of a demonstration strike – detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area “in a period of immediate threat of aggression” prior to an actual conflict in order to send a frightening message to countries in the West.
Former NATO official William Alberque, now at the Stimson Center, said the sample was only a small proportion of “hundreds, if not thousands, of targets mapped across Europe . . . including military and critical infrastructure targets”.
He explained: “They want the fear of Russian nuclear weapon use to be the magic key that unlocks Western acquiescence.”
Russia’s ability to hit the entire continent means that targets throughout the continent would be at risk the moment Russian armies engaged with NATO forces in the Baltic states and Poland, analysts have said.
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, warned: “Their concept of war is total war.
“They see these things – tactical nuclear warheads- as potentially war-winning weapons,” he added. “They’re going to want to use them, and they’re going to want to use them pretty quickly.”
Tactical nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by air, land or sea, have a shorter range and are less destructive than the larger “strategic” weapons – but they are still capable of releasing more energy than the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
The files also set out Russia’s top priority in a conflict as “weakening the enemy’s military and economic potential”, with experts believing this is a clear indication of Russia’s willingness to strike civilian sites and critical infrastructure, in a similar way to Ukraine.
NATO calculations suggest member-states have less than five per cent of the air defence capacities needed to protect the alliance’s eastern flank against a full-scale attack.
Speaking in June, Putin boasted that Europe would be “more or less defenceless” against Russian missile strikes.
Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russian strategists saw nuclear weapons as central to the early stages of any conflict because of NATO’s inferior conventional resources.
She explained: “They just don’t have enough missiles.”