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- These are some of the storage units
where Russia houses its atomic warheads.
Satellite images are a key tool for the world
to keep an eye on the nuclear sites
dotted across the country.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin
suffers losses in Ukraine, he has suggested
that he was ready to use his nuclear arsenal.
- (speaking Russian)
- A nuclear strike is still widely seen
as an unlikely scenario,
but Western officials have said they are concerned,
and President Biden warned the world could face
the prospect of an Armageddon.
So how would a Russian nuclear strike play out?
- It's not like there is 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 his atomic force.
These dots represent the known 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.
The red ones indicate sites
where tactical nuclear warheads are stored.
Typically, these are lower yield weapons used
on delivery systems with a range under 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 turn to tactical weapons.
- Normally, it is assumed that strategic weapons
are the last things 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 would escalate to nuclear use,
would be the first that would be used.
- Russia has 2,889 warheads in storage,
according to American analysts.
That's almost 1,000 more than the US.
And even those tactical weapons
can be very powerful and destructive.
The RN-40 gravity bomb, carried in jets such as these,
has the same estimated power as 30 kilotons of dynamite.
That's more than the bombs that were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at about 15 to 20 kilotons,
and much less than Russia's strategic weapons.
These intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example,
can have a yield of 300 to 800 kilotons.
A strike using those weapons would be enough
to destroy any major city, according to Kristensen.
If Russia was to actually deploy
tactical nuclear weapons at these sites,
it would first have to tackle some logistical challenges.
That starts with retrieving the warheads
from the storage bunkers or units that they're housed in.
- Those weapons are all in valid storage facilities.
- Pavel Podvig is a Geneva-based nuclear weapons expert
who tracks Russian storage bases.
- These are normally some distance
from the delivery systems.
- Take this site in Belgorod
near the border with Ukraine, for example.
On a nuclear order, the site personnel would have
to retrieve the warheads from bunkers.
Then they would 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 would then need to be installed
on a launcher or airplane.
So actually deploying them for combat
could take many hours or up to a few days,
military analysts say.
That whole process would be very hard to complete
without other countries realizing,
as movements are being tracked by intelligence teams,
according to defense experts.
So Russia appears to have taken steps to be less visible.
- If you look at the satellite photos
over these nuclear weapons storage sites,
they typically have sort of a roof
or a garage at the entrance.
So, any truck that drives up goes into this garage,
so you can't see what they're loading on board.
- But increasing the chances
the message of a strike would spread
is the multiple personnel involved along the way.
The group responsible for Russia's nuclear weapons
is a special unit called the 12th Chief Directorate.
Analysts say the individuals in that force
could potentially oppose strikes.
- The military would be part of that process.
They would have a chance at least
to offer their opinion on the plan,
whether it would go ahead.
- If movement at the facilities was detected,
the West could respond in a number of ways,
according to military analysts.
One scenario is that countries could target
Moscow's storage bases, which carries huge risks.
while another is imposing more sanctions.
Strategic nuclear weapons
like this intercontinental ballistic missile
are even less likely to be used,
but hypothetically they would be much quicker to deploy.
- They're standing in their silos, the missiles,
or they're on board ballistic missiles submarines,
and they're loaded with nuclear warheads,
ready to fly on, you know, in a few minutes.
- However, before any of that,
Putin would need to actually order a strike,
and there's a series of steps that need to take place
within the Kremlin for that to happen.
The process is secretive and hard to monitor,
and could even have changed since the Ukraine War began.
Defense analysts have made an educated guess
how it would unfold, based on documents and sources.
- The theory is that there are three people
that need to be involved
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're supposed to have three briefcases, so to speak,
electronic communication devices they can use
to activate the nuclear option.
- Some defense experts believe that two out of three
of those officials would need to agree
for the strike to be carried out.
- If that is, in fact, the setup,
then it's very different from the American setup
where the president has the sole authority to launch this,
and he doesn't require...
he doesn't need approval from anyone else.
- In addition to the chain of command,
Russia has a strategic planning document,
or military doctrine,
which lays out how nuclear weapons could be used.
The document says it allows the use of nuclear weapons
if they, or other types of weapons of mass destruction,
are used against it,
as well as in the event of aggression
that threatens the existence of the Russian Federation.
The interpretation of that document
rests on the shoulders of Putin,
who has already said the territorial integrity of Russia
may be threatened,
and has claimed the annexation
of four Ukrainian territories.
When asked if Russia could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine,
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov,
told the Wall Street Journal,
"We consider such inflated nuclear rhetoric unacceptable."
But with Moscow facing setbacks in Ukraine,
officials and military analysts say
the use of tactical weapons can't be completely ruled out.
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