What if Russia uses a nuclear weapon in/near Ukraine?

The question of whether Russia will use a nuclear weapon during its war with Ukraine has often been posed in the media. But ultimately, that question is impossible to answer. This video will pose another question. What if Russia indeed uses a nuclear weapon during its war against Ukraine? That is also not easy to answer as there are many variables in play. Currently, Russian nuclear doctrine calls for use of atomic weapons if its leadership perceives a threat to Russian sovereignty and territorial integrity. Part of Russian territory is currently taken, but that alone is unlikely to call for nuclear weapons. This video will go straight to several possible situations where Russia already used a nuke, or multiple nukes. And then we'll take it from there, trying to explain what sort of cascading effects and NATO responses might each Nuclear war is a distant but harrowing possibility. Also one I'm trying out in Conflict of Nations, a game sponsoring this video. It's a free online pvp strategy game where you pick a real country to lead, then fight against up to 128 other players in real time. There are many modes in the game, so this time I'm playing the apocalypse mode, where everyone gets some nuke warheads right away. Sounds like a bloodbath. I like that the game is designed to be played when I find time to play it. Events unfold at a methodical pace. I usually give out orders, research and build in the morning, then visit my country a few more times throughout the day, to adjust my orders to the ever-changing battlefield. I love that I can play the same match on my phone and my pc. You'll hear more about the Conflict of Nations later, but for now know that Binko viewers can get an exclusive gift. Russia didn't use a nuke yet, so there's no precedent here. No one outside the US, 80 years ago, has used a nuclear weapon in anger. Back then, the US was also the most powerful country in the world. And the only country with such weapons, so there was no real opposition to it. Russia today isn't as powerful, in many areas. Conventional military power-wise, it lags behind NATO by a huge margin. In certain aspects, this war in Ukraine has lowered its conventional military power, though in other aspects, like battlefield experience or drone usage, it's probably more powerful than it was before the war. Economically, Russia is weaker than it was before the war, and who knows how much willpower there is within the population to mobilize for another huge war, against an opponent much larger than Ukraine. This video won't try to guess what events might lead to usage of a nuke. There are many variables that might impact such a decision. But those events and variables are not irrelevant. They might impact NATO's and Ukraine's response afterwards. What if Russia does not do well on the battlefield? If it starts slowly, gradually losing? It might have issues with further troop generation or upkeep of wartime production. Maybe NATO starts supplying Ukraine with literally thousands of novel, cheap cruise missiles per year. And those continually attack Russian production centers, among other targets. Maybe NATO countries send various personnel inside Ukraine, not necessarily at the frontline, but even a few hundred thousand troops doing other tasks might mean Ukraine can send part of their troops to the frontline. What if Ukraine does more attacks inside Russia, like the recent Kursk region offensive? Once again, official nuke use doctrine does say that nukes could be used if Russian territorial integrity is threatened. Russia is actually rewriting its nuclear doctrine, specifically due to the war in Ukraine and NATO's involvement. So it's possible the threshold for use will get lower. In late September, Putin mentioned some changes to the nuclear doctrine. Those suggest that if a non-nuclear power attacks Russia, it may get a nuclear response if said power is supported by a nuclear power. A mass air and missile strike on Russia, even if conventional, might also warrant a nuclear reply. And if Belarus is attacked, that too may involve Russian nuclear reply. Those are in addition to the usual text of risk to Russian sovereignty and territorial integrity. But what if there's a leadership change in Russia, somehow resulting in even more hardline or more unhinged policies becoming a reality? What if parts of NATO forces become even more directly involved? For example, Any combination of those factors might result in Russian leadership actually using the bomb. Sure, they talked about it many times, and the red line is obviously a very stretchy term, but it doesn't mean the red line doesn't exist. So let's say the decision gets made and Russia uses nuclear weapons. It could use just one to dry out the waters. Here's one option. It could fire a small nuclear warhead on a formation of Ukrainian troops advancing, for example. Militarily speaking, neutralizing a few companies or even a whole battalion wouldn't do much right away. We can take a small 3 kiloton warhead as an example of what Russia might use. Basically, at 1500 yards away from the blast point and beyond, most people would not be seriously affected. Not to the point that they can't continue fighting. Even most brick houses would still be standing at such a distance. So basically such a warhead could obliterate a village or a small town in Ukraine or Russia. For example, Russian town of Suja, recently taken by Ukraine, could be mostly covered by such a warhead. Ukrainian town of New York, recently taken by Russia, is larger and more spread out, and might need 3 or 4 such warheads to be covered. Town of Chasiv Yar is a bit larger still, requiring a few such warheads more, if one wanted to really level it. Of course, if one really wanted to go after such towns, which is not likely, larger warheads would get used instead. When Ukraine was entering the Kursk region, it was generally using company sized units. Meaning a few hundred troops per unit. On the second day of operation, around a dozen companies had crossed the border and were stationed in an area roughly 6 by 8 miles. There was usually a mile or two between companies. Meaning it would be hard to target more than one or two such companies with one such warhead. For comparison, if a 10 kiloton warhead was used, destruction wouldn't scale up as much as heat. Perhaps enough to cover a whole battalion worth of units dispersed around an average piece of battlefield. Battalions are usually close to a thousand troops strong. Of course, a more effective target than a field unit would be a logistics node. But that might result in greater casualties and civilian casualties and whatnot. And Russia might have issues finding targets deep behind enemy lines, as its recon abilities are still not that great. A single nuke would be all about sending a message. And the political message of such a small tactical nuke weapon would be massive. It would signal that the threshold has been crossed. When one is ready to use just one nuke, what's really the difference between it and more nukes being used? Ukraine itself couldn't really do much about it. It would call for native support. Probably asking for most direct involvement possible. Ukraine's military using western SAM systems might stop a certain small percentage of missiles being delivered, but there'd be no sure defenses. Ukrainian commander in chief Sirsky recently provided missile interception rates, and those suggest most of russian missiles with nukes would go through. Especially considering these would likely be near frontline strikes, and not strikes deep into Ukraine, which a good deal of the interception rates given apply to. Successful interception would not likely detonate nuclear warheads, as those are designed to go off by a specific detonating process, hardware for which would likely be messed up by physical damage. Anyway, morale is not easy to predict. Would one nuke galvanize Ukrainian people to fight even more, or would the people cave in and would troops start deserting in large numbers? On its own, Ukraine couldn't hope to win against nukes, if more were to be used. So on its own, the morale might indeed plummet. Japanese morale certainly plummeted after the two nuclear bombs. But that was in a different context, and Japan did not have any meaningful allies to rely on. Ukraine does. And NATO's answer to such a nuclear event would make all the difference. NATO could, for example, say that one nuke crossed the red line, and assemble a force to go into Ukraine and attack Russian troops in Ukraine directly, with conventional weapons. It would take some months, but NATO is far superior in raw numbers, and conventionally Russia could not hope to win there. That might of course invite further nukes being used by Russia. How long would it take before actual NATO brigades within Ukraine are nuked as well? Once a single tactical nuke is used, and if NATO answers that with just conventional weapons attacks, there are bound to be more nukes used, perhaps slowly creeping up in explosive yield. At a certain point, even NATO's conventional power advantage would not be able to withstand mass nuclear weapons usage by Russia and Ukraine. If Russia uses a few hundred nukes over time, upward of 100,000 NATO troops might be killed by nukes, all while leaving Ukraine a ravaged nuclear wasteland. Such a chain of events would simply not fly. NATO would, at a certain point, if Russia keeps using more and more nukes after the first one, respond in kind. And it would nuke Russian forces in Ukraine. Perhaps, if it all continues escalating, it would nuke Russian forces in Russian border regions. And before we know it, explosive yields of nukes used would rise, and intercontinental ballistic missiles would start to fly. Enter nuclear Armageddon. In the media, it's sometimes erroneously claimed that the US doesn't have tactical nukes to play such a game with Russia. It does. But there are some limits. The US has roughly two dozen 8 kiloton warheads, allegedly on a dozen trident missiles. While those are intercontinental ballistic missiles, they have been designed to carry tactical yield warheads. Of course, using an ICBM is not without risks. It would be indistinguishable from other strategic variants of ICBMs. There might still be desire to avoid total nuclear war. So those might not be the best choice of weapons to strike a nuclear power like Russia. The US, however, has nuclear-tipped air-launched cruise missiles. Those have a variable yield warhead. It could be said to explode with a yield of just 5 kilotons if needed. There are some 500 of those missiles in service. Those come with some risks of being confused with stronger yield attacks. But the risk is roughly similar to Russia using their Iskander missiles as nuke carriers, which also have variable yield warheads. The US also has quite a few free-fall nuclear bombs. Little under 500 are in use. Those can be carried by B-2 bombers and tactical jets like the F-16, F-15 and F-35. Some are stationed across Europe to be delivered by non-US air forces. The US doesn't use small nuclear-tipped artillery shells anymore. But it's evident that the US does have quite a few options and certainly more than enough numbers to go head to head with Russia when it comes to a gradually increasing exchange of tactical nuke weapons. The US, however, might have some planes shot down if they try to deliver bombs onto targets deeper behind the front lines. Those free-fall nuke bombs do not have range extension kits. Glide bomb kits could be improvised for them, sure, but it would take some time and such slow bombs would be more easy to intercept. Free-fall nuke bombs are weapons to be used right on the front line. Air-launched cruise missiles are fairly old, likely less stealthy than Russian HA-102 missiles and might also be intercepted more often. Another, perhaps even bigger reason why the full arsenal would not be actually delivered on target, is China. Its ever-increasing nuclear arsenal and military power has the US quite worried. It's very plausible that a very sizable chunk of US nuclear power, possibly over half of its arsenal, would be saved for a possible China contingency. But what about the rest of NATO, you may ask? Well, only France and the UK have nuke weapons. France uses intercontinental ballistic missiles with large warheads, and supersonic nuke missiles for their Rafale jets, but those carry a single 300 kiloton warhead. The UK is more flexible there, as its warheads are allegedly all of variable yield kind, ranging from sub-kiloton to 100 kiloton yield. But they're all delivered by submarine-launched intercontinental missiles, indistinguishable from missiles that would be used in a strategic attack. Their usage would be unwise. There are also 60 to 100 free-fall nuke bombs around Europe in hands of various countries, but those are US weapons, which can't be used without US approval. But geopolitically speaking, if the US is not part of the nuke retaliation, it would be extremely unlikely that any other European country would take on Russia on their own. Ultimately, that's the reason Russia might have two or three times more tactical nuke warheads available to use. But even so, the US would still have a few hundred to spare. Enough to go tit for tat for some time. Unless Russia escalates to hundreds right away. Before we talk about that, let's look at what Russia has. Not much is known about the Soviet and then later Russian nuclear arsenal. Sure, there were and are thousands of missiles with large warheads, strategic weapons. Those are better documented, but use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine would likely see a smaller yield weapon be used. Not a 100 kiloton one, not even a 21 kiloton one, like the bomb used over Nagasaki. But truly tactical sized warheads. Let's say anything from around a kiloton to perhaps 10 kilotons. There's very little info on such Russian warheads, their designations, yields and so on. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists report on Russian nuke arsenal lists Iskander tactical ballistic missiles. And it gives it a flexible yield of 10 to 100 kilotons. At its lower end, that would make it a borderline tactical nuke. It's not known how those yield figures were estimated. But Daya yield warhead designs, meaning variable yield warheads, are old stuff, used since late 1950s. Given that some of the even older Soviet bombs used variable yields, it's very likely Iskanders used them as well. Unlike US Air Force's cruise missiles, Russian ones aren't listed as having variable or low yield warheads. So, besides the Iskander, what else does Russia have? There are probably at least a few hundred freefall bombs, though possibly even a thousand, most of which likely use variable yields. The Atomic Scientist report simply guesses an inventory number, 334, without listing a real source behind it. The Soviet Union had a myriad of small warheads put on various other weapons. We're talking about 3 or 5 kiloton warheads for torpedoes, anti-air missiles, and so on. Similar warheads could be used or repurposed in other missiles to hurt land formations in Ukraine. As we mentioned before, some missiles like the S-300, adapted for ground strikes, are almost impossible to intercept, and are large enough to house nuclear weapons. Atomic Scientist reports suggest some 680 of such non-standard use warheads altogether. Just how many of these could be repurposed to, for example, fit inside a cruise missile or a SAM missile is anyone's guess. Given enough time, probably most. In addition to all that, Russia likely has an unknown number of artillery rounds with nuclear warheads. The Soviet Union used those, and it's unlikely Russia retired and destroyed them all. In 2000, Russia reported it did destroy nearly all such artillery rounds, but that wording does imply some have been retained. Atomic Scientist's report doesn't list artillery rounds at all, but does suggest 1200 warheads are labeled as returned, but not dismantled. That figure, however, likely includes many older strategic warheads, as well. The bottom line is, exact number of tactical warheads Russia might have aren't known. But tallied together, Russia does likely have around a thousand various tactical nuclear weapons available. Its gravity bombs are likely lacking precision delivery systems, as well as range. So many planes would be lost while delivering those. Still, hundreds of ballistic or cruise missiles with greater precision should be available. So what would escalation to hundreds of nukes right away be like? In a way, that could be regarded as an example of escalate to deescalate policy. Here, that might mean using mass firepower right away in order to discourage the other side from even responding in kind. Result of that is that there would be not much room for a tit for tat phase of slowly increasing numbers of nukes used. For example, if Russia is losing conventionally, and decides to use a nuke, but not one, it would use a hundred or more in one go. Or Russia uses one or a few, and then NATO responds to that not by a conventional attack, nor by a few nukes of its own, but with a hundred tactical nukes right away. Such decisions would all be incredibly dangerous. It would be gambling with the fate of the world, from both sides. Some might even describe it as a game of chicken, seeing who will blink first. It would be incredibly easy for such exchanges to balloon to ever larger yields. And they might not stay confined to Ukraine. Russian or NATO bases that launch conventional strikes into Ukraine might get attacked by nukes. It would be quite possible that such exchanges would spread to NATO countries. And if hundreds of nukes get used, it's virtually guaranteed that explosive yields would eventually increase, easily going over 10 kilotons, as belligerents run out of smaller yield weapons. Hiroshima was nuked with a 15 kiloton weapon. And the line between tactical and not so tactical nukes would get blurred. Even without a total war, all that would be enough to plunge world economies in massive crises. Nuclear winter would plausibly not be an issue for as long as we're talking about fairly low yield nukes, and only a hundred or two of those. Models of long term effects of a truly mass nuke exchange are contested anyway, and beyond the scope of this video. The whole escalation deal would be very hard to predict. It really depends on specific variables. For example, what if Ukraine is losing conventionally? And what if NATO is not unified in its response? And only certain countries decide to send its troops to Ukraine, despite strong objections from other countries. If Russia decides to use a nuke in such circumstances, it's plausible that NATO's response would also not be unified. Maybe some countries would just say, see, told you that was a bad idea. Maybe there would be no further NATO escalation. And maybe there would be no further Russian nukes. Maybe that initial Russian nuke would not be used on actual troops. It could be, for example, used higher up in the atmosphere over Ukraine, not actually killing anyone. It could also be used near Ukraine's coast, in the Black Sea, again devised just to send a message and not kill many. What's being targeted would certainly play a major role. Targeting military troops out in the open would cause somewhat less outcry in the west than targeting dual-use civilian targets, like power plants, factories, refineries, and so on. Targeting a large city with hundreds of thousands of people would see the biggest outcry. Crucially, though, geopolitical outcry may not be linear. There are even some wilder possibilities out there. If Ukraine is successful with its attacks into Russia, like stopping Russia retaking the Kursk region, theoretically Russia might even use a small nuke on Ukrainian troops inside Russian territory. It would be controversial, sure, and scandalous to the Russian population. But technically, it might be less scandalous to NATO countries observing it. Possibly again seeding some division between NATO countries when those sit down to discuss a response. But at the end of the day, it's all politics. NATO leadership would respond in the manner it feels is in its best long-term geopolitical interest. Heck, there's a chance that US might respond unilaterally if other NATO countries can't agree on similar geopolitical interests. The general public in those countries might agree or disagree, but that would be of secondary importance. That's because people's reactions won't be unified and won't matter much. That's why the Russian population would be unlikely to stop any further nuclear usage after, say, a surprise first nuclear detonation. Average people simply don't care enough to revolt in high enough numbers. Especially if the media would be feeding the masses with reasons why nuke usage was the only rational choice left. Finally, what about China, India, North Korea and other nuclear weapon states? They too would surely have some sort of a reaction to nuclear weapons use. One option is that they might publicly denounce it, labeling it as undesirable destabilization. Though the closer a country is to Russia and the more dependent it is on Russia, the less of a denouncement there might be. That primarily applies to North Korea, which has actually been sending weapons to Russia, actively helping it in the war. China's help has been less direct, but still hugely important. China still doesn't have as many nuke weapons as Russia or the US, so perhaps it won't welcome another precedent which might sort of partially normalize nuclear weapons use, even in conventional conflict. In a sense, all countries that do have nukes and feel they're enjoying a nuclear advantage over their adversaries might secretly be okay with such normalization of nuke weapons. Would Russian allies get negatively impacted by Russian nuke usage? Probably not directly, but indirectly it might depend on their reaction. That ties into the whole denouncement or ignoring of the nuclear event. North Korea is already a pariah, it can't get much more isolated. Iran is in a similar position, though it doesn't have nuke weapons. But India and China might want to publicly express dissatisfaction. In the end, one nuke or many, it'd be a whole new world after it. It might decide the war in Ukraine or not, that's beyond the scope of this video, but it would signal that we're all living in a much more volatile and dangerous world than we thought. As promised, more about Conflict of Nations. It's a grand strategy game, which means diplomacy is crucial. I'm gonna attack the computer-controlled Ecuador, but most countries are run by actual human players. It's imperative that I ally myself with someone if I'm to conquer the world. There's also the resource market to watch out for. Especially at the start, I won't have enough resources on the map to do everything I want. There are hundreds of technologies to research in-game, and all sorts of units to build. AWACS planes, cruise missiles, nuke weapons, of course, as well as drones, tanks, various fighter jets, SAMs, pretty much everything a modern military has is represented in-game. And best of all, Binko viewers can get that exclusive gift. Click the link in the video description below and get 13,000 gold and one month of premium subscription for free. Offer is valid for 30 days only. Choose your country and conquer the world. And remember, Binkov may talk about war, but only real peace can bring us all together.