According to newly published secret documents, the Russian navy is trained to attack targets in Europe. Russia has trained its navy to attack NATO targets in Europe, including using nuclear-capable missiles, according to a new report published by the Financial Times (FT).
Documents from the period between 2008 and 2014 Documents dating between 2008 and 2014 show a list of NATO targets across the continent for potential Russian missile strikes with conventional missiles or tactical nuclear weapons.
Russia's Baltic fleet would target mainly locations in Norway and Germany, including a large naval base in Bergen, near Oslo. Allegedly, among the Russian targets is a shipyard for submarines in the north-west of England. The documents were shown to the FT by Western sources, adding that the target maps were "for presentation purposes and not for operational use".
Nuclear weapons
The presentation also indicates that Russia has the ability to launch nuclear weapons from ships, which experts say increases the risk of escalation or accidents. The document states that the Navy's "high maneuverability" enables the execution of "surprise and preemptive strikes" and "massive missile attacks from various directions." Nuclear weapons should be used in combination with other means of destruction,.
Analysts who reviewed the documents believe that they are in line with NATO's assessment of the threat from long-range missile strikes by the Russian Navy, but also the speed with which Russia would decide on the nuclear option.
“Their concept of war is total war,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who studies arms control. “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”. Although the documents are from the period before the invasion of Ukraine, more than two years of war in that country have reignited discussions about nuclear weapons.
Nuclear conflict
"The idea of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, has become a subject of debate," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said months after Russian troops overran parts of Ukraine. "This in itself is totally unacceptable.
All nuclear-armed states should recommit to the non-use and progressive elimination of nuclear weapons." Prominent Russian officials, such as former President Dmitry Medvedev, and commentators on Russian state television have often alluded to or directly mentioned the possibility of nuclear war.
Some state media hosts and guests have suggested that Moscow launch nuclear strikes against countries such as the US and the UK, which support Kiev's war effort.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that he does not rule out the possibility of changing Russia's nuclear doctrine, which determines the circ*mstances under which Moscow would use nuclear weapons.
The Russian leader described the European countries that support Ukraine as "more or less helpless". A few days earlier, Putin said that smaller, densely populated European NATO countries that support Kiev "should be aware of what they are playing with".
The leaked documents reveal that Russia has maintained the ability to carry tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships, despite a 1991 agreement between the Soviet Union and the US to remove them. Among the carriers of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons, the documents mention "anti-submarine missiles with nuclear warheads on surface ships and submarines" and "ship and shore-based anti-aircraft guided missiles with nuclear warheads to defeat enemy air defense groups." Alberque said this revelation was shocking, given the inherent risks of carrying nuclear weapons at sea, even during peacetime.
Unlike strategic ballistic missile submarines designed to launch nuclear payloads from deep underwater, surface fleet vessels carrying nuclear warheads would face much greater dangers from storm damage or enemy attacks. Recent exercises ordered by Putin to rehearse the use of tactical nuclear weapons suggest that the leaked documents are still in line with current Russian military doctrine.
In June, Russia's armed forces practiced loading Soviet-era P-270 anti-ship cruise missiles onto a Tarantul-class corvette in Kaliningrad, where NATO officials believe an undeclared stockpile of tactical nuclear warheads is stored.
Footage of the drills showed Russia's 12th GUMO troops, who are responsible for nuclear warheads within the Russian military, practicing the movement of the missile in the container used to transport a fully nuclear-armed missile, accompanied by the appropriate guard force and procedures for handling a nuclear warhead.
Russia considering changes to nuclear doctrine, Putin claims
Russia is considering changes to its nuclear doctrine due to developments "related to lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed while speaking on June 20 in Vietnam, a day after he visited North Korea.
Belarus then announced on June 10 that it will participate in the second stage of Russian drills simulating the launch of tactical nuclear weapons. NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah told the Kyiv Independent on June 17 that "there are no significant changes" to NATO's nuclear deterrent other than "an ongoing modernization program," after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the Telegraph that the alliance is discussing putting more nuclear weapons on standby.
"We are now thinking about what could be changed in the nuclear doctrine," Putin told reporters in Hanoi, where he signed a memorandum on the schedule for establishing a nuclear technology center in Vietnam. Putin claimed that Russia does not need a preventative strike as part of its nuclear doctrine "because in a retaliatory strike, the enemy will be guaranteed to be destroyed." The Russian army is prepared for "all possible scenarios" on the front line in Ukraine, Putin added.
