A Russian state television program laid out the precise U.S. military sites it would target in the event of a nuclear attack and bragged about the speed in which it could hit them.
And that speed might have made a real difference 20 years ago when some of those bases were still open.
That information was released by Dmitry Kiselyov — the host of Russia’s main nightly news show, “Vesti Nedeli” — according to a Reuters report.
Kiselyov used a map of the United States to point out the targets Russia would go after if a nuclear war should break out. Some of them were obvious, like the Pentagon or the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.
He also mentioned two defunct military facilities: Fort Ritchie, a Maryland training center that closed in 1998, and McClellan, a California Air Force base that hasn’t been in use since 2001. Jim Creek, a Navy communications base in Washington state, was also listed as a potential target.
In addition to specifying which U.S. sites it would hit, Kiselyov also said that the “Tsirkon” hypersonic missile that the Kremlin is currently making can reach these targets in under five minutes once launched from Russian submarines.
“For now, we’re not threatening anyone,” he said. “But if such a deployment takes place, our response will be instant.”
Kiselyov is known for having close ties to the Kremlin and for being one of the most prominent anti-American figures on Russian state television.
The Kremlin told Reuters that it did not have a comment on Kiselyov’s report beyond saying that it does not get in the way of Russian state TV’s editorial policies.
This report came less than a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is prepared for a “Cuban Missile”-esque nuclear crisis if provoked and threatened to place submarines equipped with hypersonic missiles near U.S. waters.
