Secret documents reveal Russia's nuclear plans targeting Europe

According to the newspaper, the presentation for officers took place before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The plans detailed 32 targets, including the western coast of France and Barrow-in-Furness, a town in northwestern England with a shipyard where British warships are built. However, the maps were created for presentation purposes and not operational purposes.

The "Financial Times" indicates that the latest reports show how Russia was preparing for a conflict with the West far beyond NATO's immediate border, planning a series of potential strikes in Western Europe.

Documents prepared between 2008 and 2014 contain a list of targets for missiles that can carry conventional warheads or tactical nuclear weapons. Russian officers emphasize the potential strategic benefits of conducting nuclear attacks in the early phase of a conflict.

The document noted that the Russian navy's "high maneuverability" allows it to conduct "sudden and preemptive strikes" and "massive missile attacks (...) from various directions." It added that nuclear weapons are generally intended to be used "in conjunction with other means of destruction" to achieve Russia's goals. The files stated that Russia's main priority in a conflict with NATO is "to weaken the enemy's military and economic potential."

The presentation also mentions a so-called demonstration strike—detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area "in a period of direct threat of aggression" before the actual conflict, to intimidate Western countries. So far, Russia has not admitted that such strikes are part of its doctrine. According to the documents, such a strike would demonstrate "the availability and readiness to use precision non-strategic nuclear weapons" and "the intention to use nuclear weapons."

The documents also indicate that Russia has retained the capability to carry tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships, despite a 1991 agreement between the Soviet Union and the USA to remove them from such vessels.

Analysts cited by "FT" who reviewed the documents said these reports align with NATO's assessment of a potential threat of long-range missile attacks from the Russian navy. They also highlight the speed at which Russia would likely resort to using nuclear weapons. Experts added that if the Russian military engaged NATO forces in frontline countries such as the Baltic states and Poland, targets across the continent would be threatened by Russia.

William Alberque, a former NATO official now working at the Stimson Centre think tank, said that these 32 described targets are a fraction of "hundreds, if not thousands of targets mapped across Europe (...) including military and critical infrastructure targets."

"Their concept of war is total war. They view tactical nuclear warheads as potentially war-winning weapons. They will want to use them and quite quickly," said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, who studies arms control.

Dara Massicot, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Russian strategists partly view nuclear weapons as key in the early stages of a conflict with NATO due to weaker conventional military resources. "They simply don't have enough missiles," she explained.

The "FT" reminds readers that tactical nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by missiles launched from land or sea, or from aircraft, have a shorter range and are less destructive than larger "strategic" weapons intended for attacking the USA but can still release significantly more energy than the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.