Russia Wargaming Scenario of 'Global Attack' from Land, Air and Sea

The West is planning to launch missile and air strikes on Russia. That's according to a magazine linked to the defense ministry in Moscow, which described the importance of developing military capabilities in space to combat its adversaries.

The article in Military Thought, a monthly publication believed to reflect the defense ministry's strategies, outlined scenarios in which Russia's "enemies" would wage an information war before ordering several simultaneous missile and air strikes.

Tensions between Moscow and the West are high due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Kremlin propagandists frequently issuing nuclear threats against Kyiv's allies, raising speculation about Vladimir Putin's imperial ambitions.

The article reported by Russian state media outlets can be seen as a justification of Moscow's militarization of the country, where one-third of the budget this year will be spent on the armed forces.

The piece claimed that foreign policy figures in the West were looking to create joint operational formations of highly mobile troops that can target administrative, political and military-industrial infrastructure.

There would be "a rapid global strike and several (from two or three to five or seven) massive missile and air strikes," it said. These targets could be on land, at sea, in the air and space as well as in the information sphere, the piece reported widely by Russian state media said.

Russia's adversaries would conduct air-land offensive operations, which after 2030 could take place from space. "Aviation will be one of the first to enter combat operations [because of its maneuverability]... perhaps even before the deployment of the main grouping," the article said.

The attacks would be preceded by "provocative" and "potentially aggressive actions" during which "the enemy will strengthen all types of reconnaissance, its aircraft, including strategic bombers, as well as drones, will regularly fly near the Russian borders," state news agency RIA reported, citing the article.

"These factors increase the system of military threats to the Russian Federation that form new requirements for the level of ensuring its security," the article said.

This showed the need for or Russia's Aerospace Forces to be equipped with new and modernized aircraft and drones and for advanced automated control systems, and improved reconnaissance support to be introduced, the piece added.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.

The prospect of Russia using weapons beyond the atmosphere was the subject of speculation last month there was a "serious national security threat" from Russia involving a space-based nuclear weapon.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Russia is developing a weapon that has the potential to threaten satellites but has not yet deployed it and the threat is not "a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth."

Russia is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which prohibits sending nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction into orbit. Vladimir Putin said on February 20 Moscow was "categorically against...the placement of nuclear weapons in space."

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said reports of Russia pursuing an anti-satellite (ASAT) system was "another troubling attempt by the Kremlin to challenge the fundamental norms against nuclear weapons."

"It would not be a 'Sputnik moment' requiring parallel ASAT weapons system development or radical new countermeasures by the United States," he said last month in the latest issue of Arms Control Today.