Edinburgh was named on Cold War hit list of Russia's nuclear targets

It has been revealed that during the Cold War, Edinburgh was named on a hit list of Russia's nuclear targets in the UK

Edinburgh was once on a nclear target list during the Cold War.

Cold War predictions drawn up in secret by the British government reveal the extent of a Russian nuclear strike on the UK.

At the height of nuclear tensions in the 1970s and 80s, at least 38 towns and cities were feared to be at risk from a strike from the Soviet Union – and Edinburgh was considered to be one of the key targets.

Dozens of army, navy and air force bases were also earmarked for destruction.

At the time, UK defence officials drew up a list of 106 locations they believed were a target for Russia - marking them as ‘probable nuclear targets.’

Glasgow was also on the list of targets alongside a number of miltary bases in Scotland.

Recently, it was revealed that the Soviet Union mapped out Scotland’s towns and cities for more than forty years.

They did so in meticulous detail, highlighting and classifying everything from factories to football grounds in anticipation of an expanded iron curtain.

Street names were printed in Cyrillic lettering while individual buildings were colour-coded so the Soviets could easily differentiate between industrial zones, government and administrative sites and military targets.

In Edinburgh, Waverley Station, Sean Connery’s factory-filled Fountainbridge and the docks at Leith are similarly identified as areas of particular note.

The full list of UK towns and cities listed was Central London, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Teeside, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent, 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 and Armagh.

Alongside these major population centres were 23 RAF bases, 14 USAF bases, 10 radar stations, 8 military command centres, and 13 Royal Navy bases.