The Russian military has identified 160 priority targets in Japan and South Korea in the event of a conflict with Nato expanding into East Asia, according to secret documents obtained by the Financial Times.
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While many targets include legitimate military sites like airfields, radar installations and naval installations, the list also features civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, factories, and transport tunnels.
Deliberately attacking such civilian sites, in the same way Russian forces have done in Ukraine, would constitute a war crime, one analyst said.
In a story published on Tuesday, the British paper reported on 29 leaked Russian military documents used for training officers for potential conflicts in northeastern Asia, shared by “Western sources.”
Although the documents are dated from 2008 to 2014, James Brown, an international relations professor at Temple University in Tokyo, who specialises in Russian affairs, told This Week in Asia that the core elements of Russian strategy and targeting data are likely to remain relevant, albeit updated and enhanced with more recent information.
It’s obvious why radar facilities and airbases would be targets, but nuclear power plants? Road and rail tunnels?
“Of course, the Russians will have plans for targets in the event of a war breaking out because they need to know what they have to hit,” Brown said.