Let’s start in a different way. The information and opinions we collected about how Russia is blackmailing the West with nuclear weapons show that the war in Ukraine – paradoxically – is confirming the truth that the deterrent power of nuclear weapons is still working. Nobody wants to use them, which the Russians, even confusingly, officially declare from time to time. Another fact is that Putin is able to convincingly play on the nerves and fears of Western societies, skillfully creating fear step by step in ever greater doses. And this has been achieving the expected results so far.

Americans and Europeans, whose industrial, financial and military potential vastly exceeds Russia’s, remember the words of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, who described Russia in an interview as an ‘economic dwarf’, ‘a gas station whose owner has a nuclear bomb’.

Politicians and commentators, including Polish ones, reassure us that there is no point in scaremongering with war, because this is no good to anyone, although it suits Putin’s narrative. They claim there is no threat of World War III; we are in NATO, we are arming ourselves to the teeth and increasing our deterrent forces. The Russian president is bluffing, all he wants to do is to strike fear in the West. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence states that it does not see any signs of Russia preparing to use nuclear weapons. However, U.S. President Joe Biden declares we have never been so close to disaster since the Cuban Missile Crisis as we are today and warns that Putin is not bluffing about using nuclear weapons.

As early as in 2021, academics from the University of Chicago forecast that, according to the famous symbolic doomsday clock, the threat caused by climate change and nuclear weapons mean we are only a hundred seconds away from disaster. This is 20 seconds less than in January 2020 and over a quarter of an hour less than in the early 1990s. Experts also warned that it was becoming increasingly difficult to develop control mechanisms related to this terrible weapon.

The ‘atomic triad’ is still only for the chosen few

Let us briefly recall how Russia is toying with the West with nuclear weapons. First, President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia was technically prepared for a nuclear war, but did not intend to use nuclear weapons during the armed conflict in Ukraine. But he previously made the threat that anyone who speaks out against Russia or opposes what he is doing will face terrible consequences. He also put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert.

Kremlin propagandists were calling for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and threatened Berlin and London with a huge nuclear strike for their support of Ukraine. Putin was also blackmailing the West with the threat of tactical nuclear weapons.

‘I want to remind you that our country has various means of destruction, and separate components are more modern than those of NATO countries. When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,’ Putin threatened the world.

In early 2024, Russia’s president boasted that 95% of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces had been upgraded, while its air force had just taken delivery of four new nuclear-capable hypersonic bombers. He recently argued that only Russia and America currently have a ‘nuclear triad’. Additionally, Russia is superior to the West in this respect. He boasted of the successful test of a new type of Burevestnik cruise missile powered by a nuclear engine, or in other words, it has an unlimited range, as well as the latest Sarmat (Satan) intercontinental ballistic missiles.

This is because the concept of the ‘nuclear triad’, which arose in the 1960s, assumes the use of strategic nuclear weapons through three independent components: land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, ship-borne ballistic missiles and those carried by strategic bombers.

Is Putin demonstrating his nuclear deterrent power? Certainly. Just that the West is not eager to engage in a nuclear war at all, and it was Russia that caused the world’s greatest crisis, namely the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world stood at the threshold of nuclear destruction for the first time after World War II.

It is more difficult today to completely rule out such a pessimistic scenario

However, we have to bear in mind that, if Russia wanted to cause a nuclear cataclysm in Ukraine, it would not even have to use nuclear weapons. There are as many as 15 nuclear reactors at four sites in Ukraine. An attack on them, even with conventional weapons, could result in radioactive danger.

This is also a form of scaremongering by Putin. The nuclear threat from Russia is growing as the war in Ukraine escalates, already having been dubbed the greatest conflict since World War II.

After more than two years from the start of Russia’s aggression, the war between the two countries has quickly turned into a clash between Russia and the ‘degenerate’ West. Kremlin propagandists argue they are no longer fighting Ukraine, but the whole of NATO.

Analysts claim these are propaganda efforts to justify the lack of any major successes in the war with Ukraine. But this does not change the fact that a nuclear war between Russia and NATO is the worst fear of the Europeans and the world. That is why Russia’s president is ‘dosing’ it from time to time, blackmailing the West with its use. Consequently, the conviction from three years ago – without even imagining that a madman could appear, who would want to destroy the world – that no one would dare use nuclear weapons is no longer so widespread.

The hope that such a scenario will not come true still prevails, but it is more difficult today to completely rule out this pessimistic scenario. The concern that Russia, with its back against the wall, could decide to make some sort of crazy move still lingers in the backs of the minds of Western leaders.

The procedures for using strategic missiles with nuclear warheads have numerous safeguards

Does this mean that the current crises that the world has created for itself must lead us to Armageddon?

Experts reassure us that this is just controlled scaremongering; the Kremlin is deliberately provoking tensions, with bluffs and disinformation, which have been commonly used tools of international politics for a long time. This does not change the fact that nuclear weapons are not becoming unimportant. Nuclear arsenals are constantly being expanded; strategies and methods of use are being modified, even though there is already sufficient fire power in the world to destroy it several times over.

In addition, the strategies – both Russian and U.S. – allow for the use of nuclear weapons not only in case of a nuclear conflict, but also in response to an attack with conventional forces, if it turns out that a conventional conflict is resulting in a large number of victims or is threatening important strategic state interests.

Allegedly secret records of Russia’s procedures regarding the use of nuclear weapons were recently revealed. These do not rule out their use in other cases, even if Russia is not attacked. This could be a deliberate leak to scare the West that, if Putin had his back against the wall, he could also use nuclear weapons.

Experts say it would not be that straightforward. Russia’s procedures for using strategic missiles with nuclear warheads have numerous safeguards. They are so complex that it would be virtually impossible for such a missile to be launched by accident, or if someone were to go rogue. To such an extent that even Russia’s president cannot activate the launch procedure on his own. The General Staff has the launch codes for ballistic missiles. The president informs the staff about his decision and it is the staff that gives the orders to use nuclear weapons. There is one exception. The president may make such a decision if Russia is attacked and command and communication channels are destroyed.

The situation is different in the case of tactical nuclear weapons. In that case, the decision-making process is simpler. A rogue or desperate commander of a division or of a battery of classic or rocket artillery is enough to launch a missile with a low-power nuclear payload. If he receives such missiles.

But will these safeguards actually work during war, given that Putin has unlimited power?

Strategic and tactical nuclear weapons

Let us explain how strategic nuclear weapons differ from tactical nuclear weapons. What are the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear powers today? According to available, incomplete and almost certainly not entirely correct data, Russia’s and the U.S.’s potentials in the case of strategic nuclear weapons are relatively comparable.

Strategic weapons are long-range intercontinental missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads with huge destructive power of hundreds of kilotons to a distance of 5,000 km or more. We should remember that the Little Boy bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had a power of approximately 16 kilotons.

Short- and medium-range tactical nuclear weapons have a range of between 500 and 5,500 km and a small payload (of between several and several dozen kilotons). Russia is the leader with such weapons. It is estimated to have between 2,000 and 6,000 such warheads. The U.S. arsenal consists of 500 to 1,000, of which approximately 200 are deployed in NATO’s European bases.

It is estimated that an explosion of a ten kiloton nuclear bomb would create a 20 m deep crater, while over 50,000 people within a radius of 1.5 km would die. People outside this range would be irradiated and would receive burns.

The latest data shows that there are increasingly more nuclear weapons

What is dangerous is that the size of the world’s nuclear potential is constantly growing. This will continue into the near future. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says this is the first such case since the end of the Cold War. Countries that have the deadliest weapons of this kind spent $82.4bn on them in 2021, $6.4bn up on 2020.

The United States allocated almost $30bn on upgrading its nuclear weapons and infrastructure, including ground-based strategic deterrents, the B-21 bomber, Long Range Stand Off weapons, and the Columbia-class submarine.

China allocates 4% of its military spending to nuclear weapons, while Russia’s spending on nuclear weapons accounted for about 13% of total defense spending in 2010–2016, although this has increased substantially in recent years. It is estimated that it might currently amount to approximately $10 bn.

Of course, after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, these amounts could be higher. Just like the data on the number of nuclear warheads that the superpowers have at their disposal. No one is officially boasting about this data. That is why any information on this should be considered with caution.

So what do we know from the officially published data, which, after all, often differs? According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, nine countries in the world currently have nuclear weapons. These are the United States, Russia, India, Pakistan, Great Britain, France, China, Israel and North Korea. According to data from the Federation of American Scientists, there were 12,700 nuclear warheads globally in 2022, of which two countries had almost 91% (11,807 warheads), namely the U.S. (approx. 5,600) and the Russian Federation (approx. 6,300).

This is still not much compared to the Cold War period. At that time, before the nuclear reduction treaty, the USSR had the largest arsenal of nuclear warheads. It had over 39,000, while the U.S. had around 32,000.

The latest data shows that there are increasingly more nuclear weapons. What size of arsenal do these countries have? Russia is currently still expected to have the most warheads, namely 7,700, while the United States presumably has 6,800. Next comes Pakistan, which supposedly has 150, and India, with slightly less, namely 149 warheads.

France has 300 warheads, Great Britain has 215, Israel has 80 and North Korea has 20. The problem is estimating China’s nuclear potential. It is estimated that it has approximately 200–350 warheads. It is expected that the Middle Kingdom will have 700 warheads by 2027 and more than a thousand in 2030.

Iran is omitted from the statistics, although a great deal suggests that, despite the sanctions, it may also have nuclear weapons. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, after the Iranian attack on Israel, Tehran is threatening to place nuclear warheads in the missiles it wants to fire at Israel.

We have a U.S. missile defense system to defend us

We should remember that, according to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 2010, both Russia and the U.S. are able to have up to 1,550 warheads, which can carry 700 ballistic missiles each, as well as bombers and ships, the so-called ‘nuclear triad’.

The treaty allowed each country to conduct up to 18 inspections a year, confirming the actual status of these forces. Such inspections have not taken place since 2020. They were suspended because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The U.S. wanted to resume inspections in August 2022, but Russia did not agree to this allegedly because of the restrictions on air traffic for Russian aircraft imposed by the U.S. and its allies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, making it difficult for Russian inspectors to travel to U.S. bases. Russia suspended the START Treaty a year later, in February 2023.

Poland’s neighbor is the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Most of Russia’s systems that are capable of carrying warheads are deployed in the Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg and Murmansk oblasts. Tactical nuclear weapons have also been located in Belarus since August 2023.

Both Warsaw and Berlin are within range of Russia’s Iskanders, which have a range of at least 500km from Kaliningrad, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk claims there may be at least 100 nuclear warheads, as well as from Belarus.

The Baltic States, the western part of Ukraine and Slovakia, and partly also the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, are also under threat of potential nuclear strikes from Moscow.

For defense, we have the U.S. Aegis Ashore anti-missile defense system at bases in Poland and Romania, two Patriot anti-missile systems and short-range systems with CAMM missiles in Poland, as well as 11 Patriot systems in Germany, together with anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems from NATO partner countries stationed in Poland and Slovakia.

Military leaders are rather unanimous when they rule out Russia’s use of its strategic nuclear arsenal. This would be the end of our world. For example, the Russian RS-28 Sarmat ballistic missile carries 15 nuclear warheads with payloads many times greater than those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This does not change the fact that there is no real chance today of nuclear disarmament. Nuclear weapons are an attribute of power and a part of the strategic game for the superpowers. It has always been the last attribute of superpower status for Russia.

After the war in Ukraine exposed all the weaknesses of the ‘empire’, the rebuilding of Russia as a superpower became a priority for Putin. Labeling Russia as a large gas station with nuclear weapons does not change this conviction. We will continue to live under the threat of nuclear destruction in the hope that, like us, no one in the world wants our world to end.