The 29 Russian military documents examined by the Financial Times, which we already spoke to you about in February and August, continue to reveal their worrying secrets and Moscow’s military strategies.
The first revelations in these highly confidential files dated 2013-2014 concerned simulated war scenarios for a Chinese invasion and strikes inside Europe.
The latest to date note the preparation of Russian forces for strikes targeting no less than 160 strategic sites in Japan and South Korea, including civil and military infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, bridges and military bases, selected as targets to stop the “grouping of troops in operational areas”.
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The documents reflect Russian military planners’ fears that the country’s eastern flank would be exposed in the event of war with NATO, and vulnerable to attacks by U.S. forces and regional allies. Thus, it should be noted that the United States has significant forces assembled in South Korea and Japan.
Mainly focused on training officers for a potential conflict on the country’s eastern border between 2008 and 2014, Japan and South Korea’s list of targets appears in a presentation intended to explain the missile’s capabilities. non-nuclear cruise Kh-101.
Records show careful planning, although the performance of these missiles fell short of expectations during the invasion of Ukraine. For example, doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo Fabian Hoffmann told the Financial Times that during the all-out invasion of Ukraine, the Kh-101 turned out to be less stealthy than expected.
-Fabian Hoffmann says:
“The Kh-101 has an external engine, a feature common to Soviet and Russian cruise missiles. However, this design choice significantly increases the radar signature of the missile“.
Flights to “test” Korean and Japanese defenses
The documents revealed by the Financial Times also include details of a 2014 Russian mission aimed at testing Japanese and South Korean air defenses.
According to the file, Russian Tu-95 bombers left the Long Range Aviation Command base at Ukrainka in Russia’s Far East to complete a 17-hour circuit around South Korea. South and Japan in order to record responses and reveal the capabilities and gaps of adversary defenses. The filing says there were 18 interceptions involving 39 aircraft.
The operation coincided with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a joint U.S.-Korean military exercise, Foal Eagle 2014.
These threats are added to those, nuclear, established in the same documents against the West. In detail, Russia is said to have planned a series of crushing strikes on Western Europe. The attacks would be launched by the Russian naval force, on various targets on the continent. A map reported by the Financial Times illustrates a sample of 32 NATO targets in Europe, by the Russian navy. The targets of the Russian Baltic Fleet are mainly in Norway and Germany.
According to William Alberque, a former NATO official who works at the Stimson Center interviewed by the Financial Times, this sample represents only a small part of “hundreds, if not thousands, of targets mapped across Europe including military and critical infrastructure targets”.
