Seven US locations likely on Putin's nuclear hit list as Zelenskyy warns Russia 'already started World War 3'

The threat of another catastrophic global conflict on the scale of the Second World War has never been far from the minds of military elites reacting to the brutal war of conquest being waged by Russia in Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian young men have been drafted into the conflict, with the BBC estimating up to 400,000 of President Putin's troops have died over just meters of foreign soil.

Meanwhile, entire generations of Ukrainians have become casualties in defense of their homeland, with the BBC also claiming 200,000 soldiers, volunteers, and draftees have been killed since the war started in February, 2022

But the horrors of this conflict are increasingly in danger of moving from some distant blood soaked battlefield on the borders of Europe to the continental United States, with seven key locations across America in the Kremlin's sights for a potential nuclear strike.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian missiles and soldiers in the four years since the war began (Pavlo Pakhomenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The threat of the conflict spreading beyond the borders of Ukraine appears to ratchet up on a weekly basis at the moment, with both nations employing increasingly sophisticated weaponry against each other.

For some time now, Russia has been striking civilian and energy infrastructure targets inside the country from positions hundreds of miles away using a variety of advanced ballistic and hypersonic missiles - some of which can reach an astonishing speed of over 15,000 miles an hour.

In recent months Ukraine has hit back with its own domestically produced long-range missiles, this week striking a ballistic missile factory over 870 miles inside Russia's territory with its own FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile.

This is despite continuous warnings from its allies that retaliating in kind risks Russia targeting Ukraine's major backers in the conflict, the main being the United States which has supplied over $127 billion in military and financial aid.

But when asked if he was inviting World War Three by stepping up Ukraine's retaliation against the much larger aggressor, the ever-defiant President Zelenskyy matter-of-factly told the BBC: "I believe that Putin has already started it.

"The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him... Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves."

The seven US locations on Putin's nuclear hit list

A number of important military targets for Russian nuclear strikes could devastate the US (Metro)

While Putin's plan for nuclear retaliation in the event of escalation or existential threat is doubtlessly a closely held secret, a few years back at the height of the invasion, Russia's state news channel actually broadcast the locations that the Kremlin would strike first.

• Virginia - The Pentagon
• Maryland - Camp David
• Maryland - Fort Ritchie
• Texas - Amarillo
• New Mexico - Albuquerque
• California - Sacramento
• Washington - Oso

While all of these are targets with supreme military importance, a nuclear missile hitting any of them would have a devastating impact on millions of Americans.

If a standard sized Russian nuke hit their target in Sacramento, strike models indicate 100,000 people would be wiped out in the blink of an eye, according to the open source tool Nuke Map.

However, it is not clear if these locations are part of the well-established system of Russian state disinformation, with places like Fort Ritchie and Sacramento seemingly included as hangovers from the Cold War, with much of their military value shifting in the years since.

Or, it could be a sign of how Putin would use a potential nuclear strike. This is because the previously intelligence-focused Fort Ritchie has been decommissioned, but remains close to the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, which functions as a back up 'underground Pentagon' in the event of an emergency.

As such, striking these three targets on the West Coast could potentially wipe out America's ability to coordinate an effective response to a nuclear war.