UK & Ireland Projected Nuclear War Targets (Detailed Map)

In the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there has been a flurry of alarmist articles in the British press covering the subject of likely nuclear war targets in the UK.

Typically, these articles show ten cities or military bases that the author(s) would anticipate being priority targets for Russian nuclear missiles, as the following small sample shows:

• Where Vladimir Putin would strike UK with nuclear weapons - and it's not where you might think (This article suggests that London would be spared (just as Tokyo was in WW2) so that it could "negotiate a surrender", but that is wishful thinking given that it overlooks the UK government's own bunkering outside of London and how World War Three will, we predict, be prosecuted).
• English places listed for Russia potential nuclear strike.
• Map shows parts of UK which could be wiped out by nuclear bomb.

However, the common thread in all such articles is they are light on detail and padded with naive or reckless assumptions about Russian intentions.

Accordingly, we proffer our own detailed map of the likely nuclear war targets within both the United Kingdom and "neutral" Ireland below.

Nuclear War Target Criteria in the UK

Obviously, without being privy to the ruminations of the Russian strategic rocket forces' commanding officers, we can only make educated guesses concerning the likely counterforce WW3 targets in the UK of a saturation strike during a nuclear war with Russia.

Nevertheless, there are enough OSINT materials available online to confidently predict what those nuclear targets might consist of, based on the following criteria:

• Military installations (these would be primary targets).
• Command and control infrastructure (also primary targets).
• Radar and transmitter stations (also primary targets).
• Civilian airports and runways that could serve as dispersal airfields for military operations (secondary targets).
• Civilian ports (also secondary targets).
• Power stations, refineries, major bridges, possibly major railway hubs, etc. (also secondary targets).
• Military industry, i.e. munitions factories (also secondary targets).

In light of the foregoing, the UK is obviously set to become a target-rich environment during a nuclear war with Russia and that is, of course, before considering the possibility (we actually assert it is a certainty) of large urban areas themselves also becoming targets, purely by constituting alluring countervalue targets.

Setting aside the countervalue issue for a moment, let us consider the full suite of counterforce targets in the UK (and neutral Ireland, for reasons we come to further below):

Projected Primary (Counterforce) & Secondary (also Counterforce) Nuclear War Targets in the UK & Ireland

The map below shows what we assess, from open source materials, to be the probable primary and secondary targets within the UK in the event of a nuclear war, although obviously only the supreme commander of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces would know what the actual targets are.

Also note that we have included WW3 targets in neutral Ireland, since (a) Russia regards neutrality as a strategy and not a genuine stance and (b) Ireland’s deep water ports and its airports would render it a veritable “Airstrip Two”, in Orwell-speak, of great use to the US in a nuclear war scenario, for which reason the British government’s “Scrum Half” war game exercise of the 1970s anticipated a double two Megaton strike on Dublin in WW3: an airburst and a groundburst.

Given that the direction of prevailing winds and the track of airmasses in the British Isles is generally either from the west blowing east, or from the south west drifting towards the north east, it becomes apparent which regions of the UK are best suited to minimising not just the impact of nuclear strikes, but the after-effects in the form of deadly nuclear fallout.

Statistically (in terms of air flow patterns) those best regions are, in order of fallout avoidance and overall survivability:

1. South-western Northern Ireland (NI also has a low rural crime rate and high gun ownership levels (including handguns, which remain legal in NI, unlike the rest of the UK)), among other plus points - see our article, Northern Ireland as a World War Three Retreat Locale?
2. Most of the southern half of the Hebrides, with the south-western half of the Great Glen and Lochaber west of Fort William (but bear in mind that any Scottish sea loch might be considered a potential target for a Russian saturation strike, so even those far removed from known areas of nuclear submarine operations might fall under a "take no chances" strike regime).
3. The Llyn Peninsula in Wales and northern Cardigan Bay, especially towards the coast. The area would rank higher but for the fallout risk from Russian strikes on Irish ports (yes, neutral Ireland would have to be "formally neutralised" by Russia in a nuclear war scenario to deny use to the US, for example).
4. Shetland bar its far north.
5. Cornwall's far SW tip, but it is precariously close to several blast zones.

Essentially, the above means that England lacks any substantial grade A retreat locales in terms of fallout avoidance, apart from perhaps the Scilly Isles and the immediate area around Penzance in the far south west of Cornwall.

That is not to say that one could not formulate a viable fallout survival strategy within the confines of England, but given that avoidance, or minimisation, of exposure to fallout should be the first step in such planning, and that bunkering down in a shelter for weeks or even months in a row should be regarded as a backup plan, it might be prudent to explore the possibility of relocating to another part of the UK with better fallout avoidance potential.

(Also see our article, The Best Nuclear War Retreat Regions in Britain & Ireland for a more in-depth study of the best areas in the UK for minimising the risk of fallout).

Tertiary (Countervalue) Targets: The Large Urban Areas

Although there is inevitably some overlap between counterforce and countervalue targets insofar as some cities are ringed with, or even host, primary military targets and important secondary targets, it is our conviction that a nuclear war with Russia will spiral into a sanguinary, genocidal barrage that will devastate the UK's urban areas, much as envisaged by the British government's own "Scrum Half" war game of 1978, which projected a mere 9% of the population surviving.

However, now that the UK has an even larger urban proportion of its population than in the late 1970s, the death toll might be far higher, to the degree that Britain as we know it would be at an end, its population reduced to New Zealand levels (i.e. of the order of 3-5 million people, almost all of whom would be rural dwellers).

The worst "crossover" cities (i.e. cities containing, or close to, primary and secondary targets) in the UK would be:

• London - multiple governmental / command targets.
• Plymouth - multiple naval facilities.
• Portsmouth - multiple naval facilities.
• Poole-Bournemouth - multiple military & secondary targets
• Southampton - as above.
• Belfast - as above.
• Edinburgh - downwind of, but in v close proximity to, multiple primary & secondary targets.
• Glasgow - as above.
• Dundee - as above.
• Liverpool - several secondary targets.
• Bristol - as above.
• Hull - as above.
• Derby-Nottingham - as above,
• Newcastle-upon-Tyne - as above.
• Middlesbrough - as above.

That all said, if (or rather, when) Russia launches against our cities with a view to killing their inhabitants rather than simply eliminating counterforce targets, all of the foregoing will become academic; the loss of life, both in the strikes and in their aftermath, will set the UK's population levels back several centuries.

The Time to Act is Now

Russia and China may not be ready for war just yet, but they are feverishly preparing for it and are fully committed to executing it later this decade and now, belatedly, our western governments, in full cognisance of Russian and Chinese intentions, are trying to alert their own populations to what is coming, not for any genuinely altruistic reason, but to prime us for austere times ahead, a transition of our economies into war standings, conscription and other unpleasant developments to come over the next few years (as hinted at in June 2025's National Security Strategy) during what will prove to be the World War Three antebellum.

Time is running out to prepare for the coming nuclear war with Russia, so this is a conversation you have to start having with your nearest and dearest now, while there is still a window to prepare for it.

Accordingly, do not put off availing of our services.