Russian TV shows ‘nuclear targets’ in US

Russian state television has listed several US military facilities that Moscow would target, in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile that Russia is developing, would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.

Background 

The United States and Russia maintain diplomatic and trade relations. The relationship was generally warm under the Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1991–99) until the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999; and has since deteriorated significantly. In 2014, relations were greatly strained due to the crisis in Ukraine, Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, differences regarding Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War, and from the end of 2016 over Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Mutual sanctions imposed in 2014 remain in place.

Due to the situation concerning Ukraine, relations between Russia and the U.S. in 2014 were said to be at their worst since the end of the Cold War. A week after the inauguration of Donald Trump as President on January 20, 2017,  Trump had a 50-minute telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin - which was hailed by both governments as a step towards improvement of relations between the U.S. and Russia; the presidents agreed to arrange a face-to-face meeting for a later date.

In April 2018, US-Russia relations further deteriorated by the Russian missile strikes against the Syrian government targets following the suspected chemical attack in Douma on 7 April. The countries clashed diplomatically, with Russia's top military officials threatening to hit U.S. military targets in the event of a massive U.S.-led strike against Syria.

Analysis 

This latest report, unusual even by the somewhat-aggressive standard of Russian state TV, was broadcast on Sunday evening (Feb 24), days after President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was militarily ready for a "Cuban Missile"-style crisis if the United States wanted one. The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

With tensions rising over Russian fears that the US might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a Cold War-era arms-control treaty unravels, Mr. Putin has said Russia would be forced to respond by placing hypersonic nuclear missiles on submarines near US waters.

The US says it has no immediate plans to deploy such missiles in Europe and has dismissed Mr. Putin's warnings as disingenuous propaganda. It does not currently have ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles that it could place in Europe. However, its decision to quit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty over an alleged Russian violation, something Moscow denies, has freed it to start developing and deploying such missiles.

Mr. Putin has said Russia does not want a new arms race but has also dialled up his military rhetoric. The Pentagon said that Mr. Putin's threats only helped unite NATO. "Every time Putin issues these bombastic threats and touts his new doomsday devices, he should know he only deepens NATO's resolve to work together to ensure our collective security," Mr. Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

Some analysts have seen his approach as a tactic to try to re-engage the US in talks about the strategic balance between the two powers, for which Moscow has long pushed, with mixed results.  In the Sunday evening broadcast, Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia's main weekly TV news show 'Vesti Nedeli', showed a map of the US and identified several targets he said Moscow would want to hit in the event of a nuclear war.

The targets, such as US presidential or military command centres, also included Fort Ritchie, a military training centre in Maryland closed in 1998, McClellan, a US Air Force base in California closed in 2001, and Jim Creek, a naval communications base in Washington state. The "Tsirkon"('Zircon') hypersonic missile that Russia is developing could hit the targets in less than five minutes if launched from Russian submarines.

Hypersonic flight is generally taken to mean travelling through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound. The Kremlin said on Monday it did not interfere in state TV's editorial policy.

Assessment 

Our assessment is that this could be the work of propagandists in Russia and could have less bearing on the official Russian stance on the present bilateral relationship with Washington. We believe that news agencies resort to such tactics to drum up public sentiment for or against a particular military action.