As an addendum to my above post, in the early 1990's, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russian historians, having unprecedented access to the former government's archives, published the Soviet Armed Forces battle plan in the event of war against the NATO forces.  It called for:

1. An "immediate pre-emptive" nuclear strike on all NATO bases in West Germany AND on the six largest cities in West Germany, none of which possessed even nominal military interest.

2. A simultaneous warning to Great Britain and France that their homelands would be spared an nuclear attack only if they were to "stand down" their own nuclear forces.

3. A warning to the United States and all NATO forces that the "limited nuclear phase" had ended, that the "non-nuclear phase" was still in force, and that "nuclear retaliation" on the part of NATO would lead to "generalized nuclear war".

With the "putinization" of the Russian Federation, said archives are no longer available.