Russia trained officers for attacks on Japan and South Korea.

According to secret files seen by the Financial Times from 2013-2014, the Russian military has drawn up detailed target lists for potential wars with Japan and South Korea, including nuclear power plants and other civilian infrastructure.

Strike plans, included in the release set. Russian military The documents, covering 160 locations such as roads, bridges and factories, were selected as targets to stop the “concentration of troops in operational objective areas”.

Moscow’s concern over its eastern flank is highlighted in documents seen by Western sources to the FT. Russian military planners fear that the country’s eastern borders could be exposed in any war NATO and vulnerable to attacks from US assets and regional allies.

The documents are from a cache of 29 secret Russian military documents from 2008-14 that focused on training officers for a potential conflict on the country’s eastern border and are still relevant to Russian strategy.

The FT reported this year how the documents contain previously unknown details on how the principles are used Nuclear weapons and lists conditions for war-gaming a Chinese invasion And for deep attacks In Europe.

Asia has become a focal point for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine and his broad stance against NATO.

In addition to its economic dependence on China, Moscow has recruited 12,000 troops from North Korea to fight in Ukraine and is bolstering Pyongyang economically and militarily in response. “The regional conflict in Ukraine has taken on elements of a global nature,” Putin said after Ukraine fired a test ballistic missile in November.

William Alberqui, a former NATO arms control official at the Stimson Center, said that together, the leaked documents and the recent classification of North Korea are “directly and inextricably linked once and for all to wars in Europe and Asia.” “Asia can’t stop the conflict in Europe, if a war breaks out in Asia, Europe can’t stay silent,” he said.

A list of Japanese and South Korean targets was included in a presentation to clarify the Kh-101’s non-nuclear cruise missile capabilities. Experts reviewed by the FT suggest the content was circulated in 2013 or 2014. The document is marked with the logo of the Senior Officers Training College, Combined Arms Academy.

The United States has significant forces concentrated in South Korea and Japan. In the year Since the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, both countries have joined a Washington-led export control coalition to put pressure on the Kremlin’s arsenal.

Alberke said the documents show how Russia perceives threats from allies in West Asia, which the Kremlin fears could allow it to attack military forces in the region, including missile brigades. “While Russia is about to strike Estonia out of the blue, they should strike US forces and allies in Japan and Korea,” he said.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, did not respond to requests for comment.

The first 82 places on Russia’s target list are of a military nature, such as the headquarters of the central and regional commands of the Japanese and South Korean armed forces, radar installations, airfields and naval installations.

The remaining areas of civil infrastructure in Japan are road and rail tunnels, such as the Kanmon Tunnel, which connects the islands of Honshu and Kyushu. Energy infrastructure is also a priority: the list includes nuclear complexes such as Tokai and 13 power plants.

The main civilian targets in South Korea are bridges, but the list also includes industrial sites such as Pohang steelworks and chemical plants in Busan.

Much of the presentation concerned how a hypothetical strike would occur using the Kh-101 non-nuclear barge. The chosen example is Okushiru, a Japanese radar base located on a hilly coastal island. One slide, discussing such an attack, is illustrated with an animated gif of a large explosion.

The slides show the care Russia took in selecting its target list. The memo on two South Korean command and control bunkers includes an estimate of the force required to breach their defenses. The specifications also note other details such as size of facilities and potential output.

Okushiritou’s photographs of buildings taken from a Japanese radar base are also included in the slides, along with exact measurements of target buildings and facilities.

Michito Tsuruoka, an associate professor at Keio University and a former researcher at Japan’s defense ministry, said a conflict with Russia is a particular challenge for Tokyo if it is due to Russia’s escalation of the conflict from Europe – so-called “horizontal escalation”.

In the event of a conflict with North Korea or China, Japan would receive early warning. We may have time to prepare and act. But when it comes to horizontal expansion from Europe, Tokyo will have a shorter warning period and Japan will have fewer options on its own to prevent conflict.

Russia is “not often seen as a security threat by ordinary Japanese,” said Turuka, whose Japanese military and air force have long been particularly concerned about Russia.

Russia and Japan have signed an official peace treaty to end World War II over a dispute over the Kuril Islands. The Soviet Army captured the Kurils at the end of the war in 1945 and expelled the Japanese residents from the islands.

Then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in January that his government was “fully committed” to negotiating the issue.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded on X: “We will not discriminate against ‘Japanese sentiments’ . . . These are not ‘disputed territories’ but Russia.

Russia’s plans show confidence in its missile system, which has since been inflated. A hypothetical mission over Okushiru would involve the use of 12 Kh-101s with one Tu-160 heavy bomber. The document rates the probability of destroying the target at 85 percent.

However, according to Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, during the entire invasion of Ukraine, the Kh-101 proved less stealthy than expected and struggled to penetrate areas with overlapping air defenses.

“The Kh-101 has an external engine, which is a common feature of Soviet and Russian cruise missiles,” Hoffman added. However, this design choice significantly increases the missile’s radar signature.

Hoffman also pointed out that the missile was less accurate than expected. “This is an obvious problem for missile systems of limited production that rely on precision to destroy their targets,” he said.

A second presentation about Japan and South Korea provides unusual insight into Russia’s practice of routinely probing its neighbors’ air defenses.

The report It summarizes the mission of the Tu-95 heavy bombers sent to test the air defenses of Japan and South Korea on February 24, 2014. The operation coincided with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the US-Korea military exercise Fall Eagle. 2014.

Russian bombers left the Long-Range Aviation Command Center in Ukrainka for a 17-hour circuit around South Korea and Japan to record responses.

It mentions that there were 18 outages involving 39 aircraft. The longest encounter was a 70-minute escort with a pair of Japanese F4 Phantoms that were, according to the Russian pilots, “unarmored.” There are only seven fighter jets carrying air-to-air missiles.

The route is similar to that taken earlier this year by two Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft during strategic exercises in the Pacific Ocean in September, including the disputed location near Kurles.