The Russian military is preparing detailed target lists for a potential war with Japan and South Korea that include nuclear power stations and other civilian infrastructure, according to secret files from 2013. -2014 as seen in the Financial Times.

The strike plans, summarized in a leaked set of Russian military document, covering 160 places such as roads, bridges and factories, which were chosen as targets to stop the “regrouping of troops in areas of operational purpose”.

Moscow’s grave concerns about its eastern flank are highlighted in the documents, which were shown to the FT by western sources. Russian military planners fear that the country’s eastern borders will be exposed in any war us and vulnerable to attack from US assets and allies in the region.

The documents were drawn from a cache of 29 secret Russian military files, most of which focused on training officers for potential conflicts on the country’s eastern border from 2008-14 and are still seen as relevant in Russian strategy.

The FT reported this year how the documents contained previously unknown details of the operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons and outline scenario for war-gaming a invasion of China and for deep strikes within Europe.

Asia has become central to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy for pursuing an all-out invasion of Ukraine and his broader stance against Nato.

In addition to growing economic dependence on China, Moscow has recruited 12,000 troops from North Korea to fight in Ukraine while strengthening Pyongyang economically and militarily in return. After the firing of an experimental ballistic missile in Ukraine in November, Putin said that “the conflict in the region of Ukraine has acquired the elements of a global nature”.

William Alberque, a former NATO arms control official now at the Stimson Center, said that, together, the leaked documents and the recent North Korean deployment prove “once and for all that the European and Asian theaters of war are directly and inextricably linked”. “Asia cannot prevent conflict in Europe, nor can Europe sit idly by when war breaks out in Asia,” he said.

The target list for Japan and South Korea was contained in a presentation intended to explain the capabilities of the Kh-101 non-nuclear cruise missile. Experts who examined it for the FT said the contents suggested it was circulated in 2013 or 2014. The document was marked with the insignia of the Combined Arms Academy, a training college for senior officers.

The US has significant forces amassed in South Korea and Japan. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the two countries have joined an export control coalition led by Washington to pressure the Kremlin’s war machine.

Alberque said the documents show how Russia recognizes the threat from its western allies in Asia, which the Kremlin fears could prevent or enable a US-led attack on its military forces in the region. including missile brigades. “In a situation where Russia is going to attack Estonia out of the blue, they will have to strike the US forces and enablers in Japan and Korea as well,” he said.

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

The first 82 sites on Russia’s target list are military in nature, such as central and regional command headquarters of the Japanese and South Korean armed forces, radar installations, air bases and naval installations.

What remains are civilian infrastructure sites including Japan’s road and rail tunnels such as the Kanmon tunnel that connects the islands of Honshu and Kyushu. Energy infrastructure is also a priority: the list includes 13 power plants, such as the Tokai nuclear complex, as well as fuel refineries.

In South Korea, the main civilian targets were bridges, but the list also included industrial sites such as Pohang steelworks and a chemical factory in Busan.

Much of the presentation was concerned with how a hypothetical strike might occur using a Kh-101 non-nuclear barrage. The chosen example is Okushiritou, a Japanese radar base on a hilly offshore island. A slide, which deals with such an attack, is illustrated with an animated gif of a huge explosion.

The slides reveal the care Russia took in selecting the target list. A note against two South Korean command-and-control bunkers included estimates of the force required to breach their defenses. The lists also note other details such as the size and potential output of the facilities.

Photographs of Okushiritou buildings, taken from inside a Japanese radar base, are also included in the slides, along with precise measurements of target buildings and facilities.

Michito Tsuruoka, an associate professor at Keio University and a former researcher at Japan’s Ministry of Defense, said the conflict with Russia is a particular challenge for Tokyo if it is the result of Russia spreading the conflict from Europe. – which is called “horizontal escalation”.

“In a conflict with North Korea or China, Japan will get early warnings. We may have time to prepare and try to act. But when it comes to a horizontal development from Europe, it is a more short warning time for Tokyo and Japan has little choice of its own to prevent conflict.”

While Japan’s military, and the air force in particular, have long been concerned about Russia, Tsuruoka said Russia “is not always seen as a security threat by ordinary Japanese people”.

Russia and Japan have never signed an official peace treaty to end the second world war over the Kuril Islands dispute. The Soviet army seized the Kuril Islands at the end of the war in 1945 and expelled Japanese residents from the islands, which are now home to about 20,000 Russians.

Fumio Kishida, Japan’s then prime minister, stated in January that his government was “fully committed” to negotiations on the issue.

Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia, told X in response: “We don’t care about the ‘feelings of the Japanese’. . . These are not ‘disputed territories’ but Russia.”

Russia’s plans reflect a reliance on its missile systems that has since proven to be overstated. The hypothetical mission against Okushiritou involved the use of 12 Kh-101s launched from a Tu-160 heavy bomber. The document assessed the chance of destroying the target at 85 percent.

However, Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, says that during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kh-101 proved to be less stealthy than expected and struggled to entering areas with layered air defenses.

Hoffmann added: “Kh-101 has an external engine, which is a common characteristic of Soviet and Russian cruise missiles. However, this design option significantly increases the missile’s radar signature.

Hoffmann also noted that the missile proved to be less accurate than expected. “For missile systems with limited yield that rely on precision targeting to destroy their targets, this is an obvious problem,” he said.

The second presentation by Japan and South Korea offers a unique insight into Russia’s habit of constantly probing its neighbors’ air defenses.

The report summarizes the mission of a pair of Tu-95 heavy bombers, which were sent to test the air defense of Japan and South Korea on February 24 2014. The operation coincided with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a joint US-Korean military exercise, Foal Eagle 2014.

Russian bombers, according to the file, left the base of the long-range aviation command in Ukrainka in Russia’s Far East for a 17-hour circuit around South Korea and Japan to record responses.

It noted that there were 18 interceptions involving 39 aircraft. The longest encounter was a 70-minute escort by a pair of Japanese F4 Phantoms which, according to the Russian pilots, were “unarmed”. Only seven of the interceptions were by fighter aircraft carrying air-to-air missiles.

The route is almost identical to that taken by two Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft earlier this year when they circled Japan during strategic exercises in the Pacific in September, including a flight over disputed territory near the Kurils.