Declassified Cold War documents prepared by the Government have exposed the scale of a potential Russian nuclear attack on the UK. A minimum of 38 towns and cities were considered vulnerable to attack from the Soviet Union – alongside numerous army, navy and air force installations.

The Daily Star revealed the nuclear locations that Russia had targeted ahead of an emerging Cold War standoff. Military planners drew up approximately 106 sites they suspected Russia was prepared to hit – designating them “probable nuclear targets”. However, it acknowledged this was not thought to represent every location Russia would target in a “general war”.

The strategy received official approval from the Prime Minister’s office during Edward Heath’s tenure, with the declassified files stored at the National Archives.

UK towns and cities listed: Central London, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Teeside, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Stoke-on-Tent, Belfast, Huddersfield, Sunderland, Gillingham, Rochester, Chatham, Maidstone, Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Cardiff, Manchester, Southampton, Leeds, Newcastle/Gateshead, Bristol, Sheffield, Swansea, Hull, Catterick, York, Preston, Cambridge, Dover, Reading, Salcombe, Brecon, Kidderminster, Armagh.

There were also 23 RAF bases, 14 USAF bases, 10 radar stations, eight military command centres, and 13 Royal Navy bases.

More recently, numerous UK defence-related sites were identified as targets by Russian senator and war veteran Dmitry Rogozin.

He issued this is as a response to former defence secretary Ben Wallace calling for “making Crimea uninhabitable and unviable from a Russian point of view”.

Rogozin said: “Former British Defence Minister Ben Wallace on what Kyiv and its NATO allies should do to end the military actions:

“We must help Ukraine acquire long-range capabilities to make Crimea uninhabitable. We need to strangle Crimea. What a sober minister has in mind, a former one has on his tongue.

“However, it is even good that they reveal their true intentions. It is useful to read this for those of us who still consider peace with imperialist aggressors possible.

“And my advice to our [Russian] oligarchs: do not send your children to study in England! It is deadly dangerous.”