What We Know About How a Russian Nuclear Strike Could Play Out | WSJ

(click) - These are some of the storage units where Russia keeps its atomic warheads. Satellite imagery is a key tool for the world to monitor

nuclear

sites spread across the country. As Russian President Vladimir Putin suffers losses in Ukraine, he has suggested that he was willing to use his

nuclear

arsenal. - (Russian speaking) - A nuclear attack is still considered an unlikely scenario, but Western officials have said they are concerned, and President Biden warned that the world

could

face the prospect of Armageddon. So how would a Russian nuclear attack

play

out? - It's not like there's a big red button on the president's desk. -By looking at a map of Russia, we can learn a lot about how Putin would activate the atomic force from it.

These points represent the

know

n locations where Russia houses some of its nuclear weapons. Bases like these have been identified by analysts who monitor nuclear arsenals using satellite images and other sources. Red ones indicate sites where tactical nuclear warheads are stored. These are generally lower-yield weapons used in delivery systems with a range of less than 310 miles. And the blue dots represent where some of Moscow's strategic weapons are deployed. These have more power and can travel up to about 9,000 miles. If Moscow decided to launch a nuclear attack, many Western and Ukrainian officials believe it would resort to tactical weapons. - Normally, strategic weapons are supposed to be the last thing you touch. - Hans Kristensen is the director of the Nuclear Information Project and has been studying Russian nuclear weapons for decades. - The assumption is that tactical nuclear weapons, to the extent that they are used nuclearly, would be the first to be used. - Russia has 2,889 warheads stored, according to US analysts.

That's almost 1,000 more than the United States. And even those tactical weapons can be very powerful and destructive. The RN-40 gravity bomb, carried on planes like these, has the same estimated power as 30 kilotons of dynamite. That is more than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, between 15 and 20 kilotons, and much less than Russia's strategic weapons. These intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example, can have a power of 300 to 800 kilotons. An attack with such weapons would be enough to destroy any major city, according to Kristensen. If Russia were to actually deploy tactical nuclear weapons at these sites, it would first have to address some logistical challenges.

That begins with recovering the warheads from the bunkers or storage units in which they are housed. - All those weapons are in valid storage facilities. - Pavel Podvig is a Geneva-based nuclear weapons expert who tracks Russian storage bases. - Typically located some distance from delivery systems. - Take as an example this site in Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine. In the event of a nuclear order, site personnel would have to recover the warheads from the bunkers. They would then load them onto trucks in special climate-controlled containers and transport them to an airfield or designated point near a missile base like this one.

Once they arrive, they will need to be installed on a launcher or aircraft. Therefore, deploying them for combat

could

take many hours or even a few days, military analysts say. That entire process would be very difficult to complete without other countries noticing, as intelligence teams track movements, according to defense experts. So Russia appears to have taken steps to be less visible. - If you look at satellite photos of these nuclear weapons storage sites, they usually have some kind of roof or garage at the entrance. So any truck that arrives goes to this garage, so you can't see

what

they're loading on board. - But

what

increases the chances of the message of a

strike

spreading is the large number of personnel involved along the way.

The group responsible for Russia's nuclear weapons is a special unit called the 12th Main Directorate. Analysts say individuals in that force could potentially oppose the attacks. -The military would be part of that process. At least they would have the opportunity to offer their opinion on the plan and whether it would be carried out. - If movement were detected at the facilities, the West could respond in several ways, according to military analysts. One scenario is that countries could attack Moscow's storage bases, which carries enormous risks. while another is imposing more sanctions. Strategic nuclear weapons like this ICBM are even less likely to be used, but would hypothetically be much faster to deploy. - They are standing in their silos, the missiles, or they are on board submarines with ballistic missiles, and they are loaded with nuclear warheads, ready to fly, you

know

, in a few minutes. - Before all that, however, Putin would have to order an attack, and there are a number of steps that must be taken within the Kremlin for that to happen.

The process is secret and difficult to monitor, and may even have changed since the Ukraine war began. Defense analysts have made an educated guess about how it would

play

out, based on documents and sources. - The theory is that there are three people who must participate in an actual launch of a Russian nuclear weapon: the Russian President, Putin, and the Minister of Defense, and then also the Chief of the Armed Forces. They are supposed to have three briefcases, so to speak, electronic communications devices that they can use to activate the nuclear option. - Some defense experts believe that two out of three of those officials would have to agree for the

strike

to take place. - If that is, in fact, the setup, then it's very different from the American setup where the president has the exclusive authority to launch this, and he doesn't require... he doesn't need the approval of anyone else. - In addition to the chain of command, Russia has a strategic planning document, or military doctrine, that sets out how nuclear weapons could be used.

The document says that it allows the use of nuclear weapons if these or other types of weapons of mass destruction are used against it, as well as in case of aggression that threatens the existence of the Russian Federation. The interpretation of that document falls on Putin, who has already said that Russia's territorial integrity may be threatened and has called for the annexation of four Ukrainian territories. Asked whether Russia could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Wall Street Journal: "We find such inflated nuclear rhetoric unacceptable." But with Moscow facing setbacks in Ukraine, military officials and analysts say the use of tactical weapons cannot be completely ruled out. (upbeat music)