Russia's nuclear targets in America

Putin, like other dictators or would-be dictators (like Trump), is a bully and doesn’t hesitate to blackmail other nations. 

That’s exactly what he did when he proclaimed he was putting his nuclear force on alert after the West reacted vehemently to his murderous invasion of Ukraine. 

As Dr. Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution who was maligned by Trump when she was was her advisor on Russia, said, “This is not that dissimilar from what Kim Jong-un is doing in North Korea, as he tries to demonstrate that he has the ability to engage in nuclear blackmail.” 

Putin’s blackmail is working extremely well by freezing his western opponent in place. 

Intuitively, should Putin decide to send some nukes over to us, one would think he’d target first our Capital City, New York or Los Angeles, but this is not necessarily the aim of a first strike by the Russians. 

Instead, nuclear weapon silos buried in northern Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota that were thought to be the first targets during the Cold War could be again, the first in line, not a perspective Mountain States people look forward to. 

These states are much more than empty land waiting for doomsday. They’re hubs of transit, energy, and agriculture. They’re home to over 9 million people, millions of acres of tribal lands, endangered species, and some of the US’ most recognizable landmarks. 

This region is nicknamed the “nuclear sponge” is shorthand for these five states where US Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) are based in underground silos. 

In the event of a massive nuclear attack from Russia, these states would, just like a sponge, mop-up many of Russia’s missiles that would be hurried to take out the US land-based missile force before they could be launched.