Putin’s secret files reveal Russia’s top targets for nuclear strikes on UK

15 August 2024, 08:27

Russia’s hit list of nuclear missile targets around the UK has emerged in a leaked dossier.

Prime targets in the UK for Putin’s strikes have been revealed to be a factory in Hull, a shipyard in Cumbria and an undisclosed target in Edinburgh.

According to 29 leaked papers seen by the Financial Times, the UK targets are among 32 different ground zero targets across Europe which predates the invasion of Ukraine.

The documents also showed that ships from Russia’s Northern fleet headquartered in Murmansk would launch the attacks on the UK.

Russia’s Baltic fleet based in Kaliningrad would target France and Germany.

Read more: Ukraine ‘captures 100 prisoners of war’ and ‘launches major attack on airfields’ as troops take more Russian land

Read more: Met Police is failing to investigate crimes and manage offenders adequately, damning report finds

The documents also show targets in Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Japan.

The target in Cumbria is likely to be the Royal Navy’s submarine shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness. A shipyard at Rosyth, just outside of the Scottish capital, is believed to be the target near Edinburgh.

Experts say the documents align with Nato’s view of the threat posed by Putin’s regime.

Former Nato official William Alberque said that the sample was just a tiny portion of ‘hundreds, if not thousands, of targets mapped across Europe . . . including military and critical infrastructure targets’.

Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, warned that Russia sees nuclear arms as ‘war-winning weapons’. 

He said: ‘They’re going to want to use them, and they’re going to want to use them pretty quickly.’

Ukrainian forces continued their advancement into Russia’s Kursk region on Wednesday, taking more ground, capturing 100 prisoners of war and destroying a Russian bomber.