As Conflict Escalates, Secret Russian Files Reportedly Reveal Lowered Nuclear Threshold Training

Plus: delving into NATO's growing stranglehold of confrontation with Russia, aimed at continuing the European war indefinitely.

This is a paid subscriber piece for a timely, and urgently-developing issue, given recent events surrounding nuclear provocations. It will cover new documents about secret Russian training involving unprecedentedly lowered tactical nuclear thresholds, as well as the general outlook for the US and NATO militaries and defense industries in the medium term future.

It’s another whopping 5,700+ word piece in size with a ton of scintillating information, of which I’ll leave a generously copious ~2,200 free to my appreciated free subscribers.

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The reason this report felt urgently timely was because of all the ongoing escalations surrounding Ukraine, which are clearly aimed by Zelensky’s regime at raising tensions as high as possible and preferably stoking a much larger conflict that could give his forces relief. Thus, in light of these recent actions, the following reports have taken on a particularly significant tint.

To kick things off, coming on the heels of the tensions surrounding Ukraine’s escalatory invasion into Kursk and attendant nuclear threats against the ZNPP and KNPP, Financial Times decided to break the story of how Russia has secretly trained to conduct vast crippling tactical nuclear strikes on European infrastructure, presumably on first strike basis:

https://archive.ph/dD1H9

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-ready-execute-nuclear-attacks-nato-targets-according-leaked-documents

But first, to get past the initial screen of clickbait sensationalism that usually clouds nuanced understanding of the facts of such reports.

FT admits the “secret stash of documents” they examined surrounds plans drawn up by Russia way back in the 2008-2014 period and is obviously being trotted out now for reasons of drumming up tensions:

The cache consists of 29 secret Russian military files drawn up between 2008 and 2014, including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons.

However, it must be said that the concern is not entirely unfounded, given that just last month Putin had triggered rare exercises specifically of Russia’s tactical nuclear forces, which included the arming and simulated launch of special nuclear-tipped Iskander-M missiles, amongst others. The article acknowledges this:

This means it’s plausible that Russia’s recent exercises could have infact been in accordance with the procedures and doctrines outlined in the mentioned documents. Note that the topic of nuclear war, nuclear exchange, etc., has become quite passé these days—but that is only in reference to the classic strategic ICBM nuclear ‘exchange’ with the U.S. The topic at hand here is entirely different and very rarely studied or discussed: a type of lower intensity nuclear war conducted mostly via tactical nuclear weapons, which in this case extends to intermediate range missiles of the kind that can reach all of the UK, as shipyards in Farrow-in-Burness and Hull were said to be part of the target list:

Delving into the description of the report from the FT article, there are a few eye-opening and little-known facts worth exploring.

Firstly, they state that Russia retains the capability to carry nukes on surface ships in order to strike pre-emptive blows on enemies from various unexpected directions:

The presentation also indicates that Russia has retained the capability to carry nuclear weapons on surface ships, a capacity that experts said carries significant extra risks of escalation or accidents.

The document notes the navy’s “high manoeuvrability” allows it to conduct “sudden and pre-emptive blows” and “massive missile strikes . . . from various directions”. It adds that nuclear weapons are “as a rule” designated for use “in combination with other means of destruction” to achieve Russia’s goals. 

The leaked 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 US to remove them.

Among Russia’s carriers of tactical nuclear weapons, it lists “anti-submarine missiles with nuclear warheads placed on surface ships and submarines” and “ship and shore-based anti-aircraft guided missiles with nuclear warheads to defeat enemy air defence groups”.

This likely refers to missiles like the Oniks P-800, Kalibr, and hypersonic Zircon, all which have nuclear variants. Each Russian fleet has a list of its own designated targets for nuclear attack: the Northern Fleet would hit defense-industrial targets in the UK, while the Baltic Fleet would hit Norway and Germany.

But William Alberque, a former Nato official now at the Stimson Center, said the sample was a small portion of “hundreds, if not thousands, of targets mapped across Europe . . . including military and critical infrastructure targets”.

Russia’s capacity to strike across Europe means that targets all over the continent would be at risk as soon as its army engaged with Nato forces in frontline countries such as the Baltic states and Poland, said analysts and former officials. 

The first truly eye-opening detail is the claim that these secret internal Russian documents include plans for a potential nuclear “demonstration” strike, if things really begin escalating:

The presentation also references the option of a so-called demonstration strike — detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area “in a period of immediate threat of aggression” before an actual conflict to scare western countries. Russia has never acknowledged such strikes are in its doctrine.

Such a strike, the files say, would show “the availability and readiness for use of precision non-strategic nuclear weapons” and the “intention to use nuclear weapons”.

To clarify: we’ve often talked about Russia doing a demonstrative nuclear test in order to get NATO’s attention in the Ukrainian conflict. That is something entirely different. A nuclear test would be something run by scientists for measuring purposes, conducted in a safe and controlled way, with a nuclear device usually detonated in a stationary mode somewhere on or near the ground.

That is why this is particularly eye-opening because it is something far more aggressive and threatening. It would entail Russia not setting up a test, but actually live-firing a real tactical nuke from one of their many systems into a remote area. The simple acknowledgment that Russia even has such contingencies drawn up is fairly startling and clearly draws a heavy shadow over the now-escalating Ukrainian conflict, where NATO’s involvement continues to grow more out of control each day.

The article states that NATO admits they have less than 5% of required air defense capacities to even consider stopping such a Russian attack:

According to Nato’s calculations, countries in the alliance have less than 5 per cent of the air defence capacities required to protect the alliance’s eastern flank against a full-scale attack from Russia.

Putin said in June that Europe would be “more or less defenceless” against Russian missile strikes.

This is an important point to punctuate because people like to point out how Russia is being demilitarized by NATO in Ukraine, yet forget to include the grave demilitarization of NATO countries’ premiere systems taking place on the Ukrainian side. This particularly concerns air defense because such systems are not only not very numerous in Europe, but they are not even manufactured in great quantity; and they are precisely the systems essential to blunting even a fraction of a potential Russian attack.

The report links another previous article of theirs with even more details.

It includes the revelation that Russia secretly harbors much lower thresholds for using tactical nukes than ‘ever publicly admitted’:

These include:

Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.

“This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”

An enemy incursion into Russian territory, one that does not even necessarily present an “existential threat” to the sovereignty of the state, as we’ve previously believed? One can quickly see why this is more relevant than ever, given Ukraine’s recent Kursk incursion.

Russia currently maintains 12 ballistic missile submarines, so the 20% destruction trigger threshold listed above would represent destroying as few as 2 of them.

The most relevant to the ongoing Ukraine operation is the following segment:

A separate training presentation for naval officers… outlines broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons.

The slides summarise the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces “would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression”, a “critical situation for the state security of Russia”.

In short, it appears to suggest that if an invading force breaches Russia’s initial line of border defenses and seems to threaten Russia a larger expansion into Russia, this could trigger potential tactical nuclear usage.

This is precisely what’s happening in Kursk right now: Ukraine has already breached the border garrisons and continues to pile on more breakthrough reserves to go even deeper. The most noteworthy fact is not only that Ukraine potentially seeks to capture a nuclear power station in Kurchatov to carry out nuclear blackmail against Russia, but there were hints of other ulterior objectives, like capturing Russia’s nuclear storage site at 50.558061, 35.754448, called Belgorod-22—though it’s claimed Russia has long removed the nuclear weapons stored there.

Furthermore, we must take into account the fact that Ukraine has already struck Russian strategic sites, not only hitting strategic bombers at airfields, but the strategic missile defense radar network several months ago. Even as of this writing, the Russian strategic Tu-95 airfield Olenya in Murmansk has reportedly been hit, or an attempt was made. Not to mention the recent attack on Morozovsk airbase in the Rostov region located at 48.317297522288435, 41.78966336425716. This airbase was said to be an official nuclear weapons storage site. Outlined in red below is said to be the section of the base for nuclear weapons storage:

And the square object to the right of it, full of munitions and fuel warehouses, was entirely destroyed by a Ukrainian strike just a couple weeks back, in early August:

Granted, it’s once again rumored that Russia has already removed the nuclear weapons from there. But the fact that Ukraine is brazenly striking known Russian nuclear deterrence sites while now fulfilling one of the other key conditions—according to the report—of Russia’s tactical nuclear defense, by breaking through Russia’s border regions in Kursk—these things combined should give us pause, and force us to wonder how close Russian defense officials could be to secretly discussing some measure of nuclear retaliation.

Given that, as stated before, Putin has already triggered tactical nuclear exercises, we can only assume there’s at least some form of a Defcon level change in the defense ministry.

Just for the record, this was the previous American “red line” officially given Russia—that if Russia ever used a nuclear device in Ukraine, NATO would destroy the entire Black Sea Fleet and every object of importance within the SMO sphere via a massive shock and awe attack:

Such a move makes no political sense for Putin, who is understood to have been restrained by his Chinese allies. They have made clear that their support is dependent on no nuclear deployment. But Russia has also been warned of a massive US-led conventional response if they go nuclear. In October 2022 General David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, who commanded US forces in Afghanistan, issued a public warning to Putin. He said: “We would respond by leading a Nato (collective) effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.”

Just two days ago, Lukashenko stated in an interview that Ukraine is trying to get Russia to use tactical nukes against it:

“Ukraine would be very happy if Russia used tactical nuclear weapons against it. It would be a blessing [for Ukraine].”

By the way, for those wondering how powerful such tactical nukes are, here are two pieces of official information:

Targeting a “moderately concentrated” brigade of 5,000 troops would need “five or six” nuclear warheads, the source said, an ineffective strategy. (source https://archive.ph/zNwR5)

Former US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said that to destroy one division of the Republican Guard of Iraq, according to his calculations, 17 tactical nuclear charges (warheads) were needed. This roughly corresponds to the number of 3-4 brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Defense experts at the UK’s Times magazine stated five or six tactical nukes are needed for a single brigade, while Cheney has been quoted with a similar ratio: that 17 tactical nukes are needed to destroy 3-4 brigades:

https://archive.ph/zNwR5

Budanov has previously stated tactical battlefield nukes would be mostly useless because the AFU forces are so dispersed that the nukes would hardly inflict much casualties—and this is true. In short: there is much more to lose than gain for Russia in using tactical battlefield nukes, other than perhaps a demonstrative one. Intermediate nukes against NATO bases on the other hand are a different story. That would certainly have an effect but could obviously trigger a full strategic nuclear exchange, and thus Armageddon itself.