The presentation to officers, which was prepared before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, detailed maps of targets as far away as the west coast of France and Fernes Barrow in the United Kingdom.
The FT, citing the same stash of 29 secret Russian military files, has previously reported that Moscow rehearsed the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the early stages of a conflict with one of the world’s major powers.
The latest revelations show how Russia envisioned a conflict with the West that would reach far beyond NATO’s immediate border, planning a series of crushing strikes across Western Europe. The documents were shown to the FT by Western sources.
2008-2014 the prepared documents include a list of targets for missiles capable of carrying conventional warheads or tactical nuclear weapons. Russian officials emphasize the advantages of using nuclear strikes at an early stage.
The presentation also notes that Russia has retained the ability to carry nuclear weapons on surface ships, a capability that experts say poses significant additional risks of escalation or accidents.
The document notes that the Navy’s “high maneuverability” allows for “sudden and preemptive strikes” and “massive missile strikes … from multiple directions.” It adds that nuclear weapons are “generally” intended to be used “in conjunction with other means of destruction” to achieve Russia’s goals.
Analysts who reviewed the documents said they were consistent with NATO’s assessment of the threat posed by Russian naval long-range missile strikes and the speed with which Russia would likely resort to nuclear weapons.
The maps, which were drawn up for representational purposes rather than operationally, show 32 NATO targets in Europe that could be targeted by the Russian fleet.
But William Alberque, a former NATO official now with the Stimson Center, said it was only a small fraction of “hundreds, if not thousands, of targets marked on maps across Europe … including military and critical infrastructure targets.”
Analysts and former officials have said that Russia’s ability to strike across Europe means that targets across the continent would be at risk if its military were to engage NATO forces in frontline countries such as the Baltic states and Poland.
“Their concept of war is total war,” Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey who studies arms control, told the FT.
“They these things [taktines branduolines galvutes] considered 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 land- or sea-launched missiles or from aircraft, have a shorter range and are less destructive than larger “strategic” weapons designed to attack the United States. However, they can still emit significantly more energy than 1945. USA dropped nuclear charges on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has repeatedly resorted to threats against Ukraine’s allies in Europe in order to stop Western military support for Kiev. “They have to remember that they are small, densely populated states,” he said in May.
The presentation also hints at the possibility of a so-called demonstration strike, detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area “during a period of direct threat of aggression” before actual conflict to scare Western countries. True, Russia has never admitted that such strikes are part of its doctrine.
The filings state that such a strike would demonstrate “the availability and readiness to use precision non-strategic nuclear weapons” and “the intent to use a nuclear weapon.”
W. Alberque, former director of NATO’s Center for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, said: “They want the fear of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons to become the magic key that unlocks Western consent.”
The files state that in the event of a conflict with NATO, Russia’s top priority is to “weaken the enemy’s military and economic potential.” Analysts said this meant Russia would strike civilian targets and critical infrastructure, as it did in Ukraine.
Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral student at the University of Oslo who studies nuclear policy, said the combination of nuclear and conventional strikes outlined in the presentation is “one package that basically wants to signal to the adversary that things are really heating up right now and it would be wise for you to start talking to us.” , how can we solve this.”
According to NATO calculations, the countries of the alliance have less than 5 percent. air defense capabilities needed to protect the alliance’s eastern flank from a full-scale Russian attack.
In June, Putin said that Europe would be “more or less defenseless” against Russian missile strikes.
Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russian strategists see nuclear weapons as critical in the early stages of any conflict with NATO in part because their military has fewer conventional resources. “They just don’t have enough missiles,” she said.
The leaked documents also indicate that Russia has retained the ability to carry tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships despite the 1991 The Soviet Union and the United States agreed to remove them.
Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons carriers list “surface-to-surface missiles with nuclear warheads mounted on surface ships and submarines” and “ship- and shore-based anti-aircraft guided missiles with nuclear warheads to defeat enemy air defense groups.”
The admission was stunning, given that transporting nuclear weapons at sea poses a risk even in peacetime, Alberque said.
Unlike a strategic ballistic missile submarine designed to fire nuclear warheads from the depths of the ocean, a surface naval vessel carrying nuclear warheads would be at much greater risk from a storm or enemy strike.
A recent Putin-ordered exercise rehearsing the use of tactical nuclear weapons shows that the leaked documents are still consistent with current Russian military doctrine.
In June, the Russian armed forces trained on a Tarantul-class corvette in Kaliningrad, where NATO officials say Russia keeps an undeclared stockpile of tactical nuclear warheads, to load Soviet-era P-270 anti-tank cruise missiles.
Footage of the exercise shows soldiers from Russia’s 12th GUMO, the Russian military’s nuclear warhead custodians, training to move a missile in a container they would use to move a fully nuclear missile, along with appropriate security forces and nuclear warhead handling procedures.
Parengta pagal „Financial Times“ inf.
2024-08-14 12:52:38