Russia prepared its fleet for missile strikes on Western Europe
Russia has been preparing its naval fleet for launching attacks on facilities deep in the territory of Europe using missiles with nuclear warheads in case a conflict with NATO started even before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to classified documents studied by Financial Times received from Western sources, the maps of distant targets, such as coastal France and the town of Barrow-in-Furness in the UK, were described in detail in the presentation for officers that preceded the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier, FT reported that the same storage with 29 classified Russian military files contained information that Moscow practised launching of tactical nuclear weapons in the early stages of a conflict with a big state. Latest reveals show how Russia envisaged the conflict with the West far beyond its direct border with NATO, planning a series of destructive strikes on the entire Western Europe.
The files, created sometime in 2008-2014, include a list of targets for missiles which can carry both ordinary warheads and tactical nuclear weapons. Russian officers listed the advantages of carrying out nuclear strikes at an early stage of the conflict.
The analysts who studied the documents state that they correspond to NATO’s assessment of the threat of long-range nuclear strikes by the Russian Naval Fleet and of how fast Russia would resort to using nuclear weapons. The maps, which were made for illustrative purposes and not for operative use, describe 32 possible NATO targets in Europe for the Russian Naval Fleet.
The targets of the Russian Baltic Fleet are mostly located in Norway and Germany, including a naval base in Bergen, as well as radar sites and special forces facilities.
The leakeds documents indicate that Russia preserved its capability to carry tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships, despite the 1991 agreement between the Soviet Union and the US about its destruction. Among Russia tactical nuclear weapons carries "anti-ship missiles with nuclear warheads, located on surface ships and submarines" and "ship and shore based anti-aircraft guided missiles for striking air defence groups of the enemy".
FT notes that the recent training with tactical nuclear weapons on Putin’s orders shows that the information mentioned in the secret documents obtained by FT correspond to the Russian military doctrine of today. In June, Russian Armed Forces trained to load the P-270 Soviet anti-ship cruise missiles onto a Tarantula class corvette in the city of Kaliningrad where, as stated by NATO representatives, an undeclared stock of tactical nuclear warheads is located.
In July, the US Department of State promised to track Russia’s actions amid the Kremlin regime’s new threats of using nuclear weapons.
It was revealed during the NATO Summit in Washington that the US and Germany agreed to deploy, among other things, the Tomahawk missiles in Germany in order to strengthen the deterrence and protection of its NATO partners.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson of the Kremlin, claimed on 13 July that European capitals would become a "potential" victim in case European countries agree to deploy American long-range missiles on their territory.