Russia’s Top Nuke Targets

Let’s say things with Russia turn into
the worst-case scenario.A deranged, desperate Vladimir Putin sees his regime about to
collapse.

In a last ditch effort to take as many enemies with him as possible, he orders a massive
launch of Russia’s nuclear arsenal targeting the West.

As the silos open, hundreds or thousands
of inter-continental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads streak away at speeds of
15,000 miles per hour.

But where are they headed? Thankfully, this hypothetical remains
very, very unlikely.

Unfortunately it’s also not entirely impossible.

Russia has the
world’s largest nuclear stockpile, with nearly 6,000 weapons and roughly 1,600 actively
deployed warheads.

The question of where these might strike if fired is one that
experts and policymakers have worried about since the days of the Cold War.

Now,
with nuclear threats once again rising, it’s worth looking at how such a doomsday
scenario might play out.

In this video, we’ll take a look at the places Russia might target with
a nuclear barrage, starting in the United States.

Some of the first US targets for a Russian nuclear
strike are the major centers of power you would expect.

The Pentagon is among the most important
of these, as it acts as the headquarters for the US Department of Defense.

If Russia were able
to damage or destroy the Pentagon, it would be an enormous blow to the command structure
of the US military.

While it would likely not cripple the US armed forces, but would cause a
major disruption and make it far more difficult for the US to organize a response.

Because of
the size of a nuclear blast and its fallout, a strike on the Pentagon would also likely
destroy much of Washington DC.

Some 713,000 people live in DC, while more than 6.

3 million
live in the greater DC area.

Estimates for a nuclear strike on the Pentagon indicate that
close to half a million people could be killed instantly, with many more falling sick from
radioactive fallout afterwards.

The initial blast would vaporize the Pentagon itself and anything
else within a half-mile radius.

Damage from the strike would radiate outwards some 4 miles from
the epicenter, including the area containing the US Capitol Building, White House, and Supreme
Court.

While the nuclear fireball and the enormous shockwave following it would be deadly on their
own, it is the potential for widespread radiation which would create the biggest hazard.

Radiation
anywhere near the blast would be intense enough to cause third degree burns, while also causing
many harmful mutations in victims’ DNA, leading to cellular degeneration and cancer.

Even if people
in the larger blast radius managed to survive the explosion, there is a good chance they would
die from the huge amount of radiation exposure.

The White House is roughly
2.

17 miles from the Pentagon, putting it well within the damage zone of a
nuclear blast.

If the president were there, they would likely be killed by the force of the
shockwave, even if the White House and Capitol were not targeted independently.

Thousands of US
officials and workers would certainly be killed, sending the government into crisis mode.

The
president would declare a state of emergency and likely invoke martial law.

If the president
were killed, the next in the line of succession would be the Vice President, Speaker of
the House of Representatives, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State,
and so on, until someone alive could be reached.

Besides the institutions around Washington
DC, the second major goal of a Russian nuclear attack would be to strike as many US missile
silos as possible, in order to minimize a retaliatory strike.

There is almost no chance
this would be totally effective, as the US has nearly as many nuclear weapons as Russia, in
addition to advanced early warning systems, nuclear submarines hidden around the world,
and powerful air defense systems.

But Russia would certainly try to take out as many
silos as possible —especially those bases with Minuteman III ICBMs– which would mean
targeting some very remote parts of the US.

One of these is Malmstrom Air Force Base,
located deep in the state of Montana.

There are around 3,400 military personnel and
1,000 civilians working at Malmstrom, many responsible for the 150 Minuteman III nuclear
missiles housed at the base.

If a Russian nuclear weapon were able to strike Malmstrom, it would
likely kill everyone at the base, plus nearly 15,000 people in the nearby towns of Black Eagle
and Great Falls.

The number of injured would be nearly double, even though the area is very
sparsely populated.

But high casualties would not be the goal of a strike on Malstrom, as Russia
would only be trying to cripple the ability of ICBMs to be fired from the base.

The effects
of a nuclear strike on the local environment would also be devastating.

Water flowing through
the Mississippi River near the impact site would instantly vaporize, while the flow from upstream
would eventually pass through the irradiated area around Malstrom.

The river would carry radioactive
particles downstream, potentially all the way down its length.

It would take months or years for any
water drawn from nearby sources to be drinkable.

In the meantime, large amounts of animals
could die of radiation poisoning, even those hundreds of miles away.

The ecological effect of
such a shock would be felt across the country, and Malstrom is far from the only target
in a potential nuclear attack by Russia.

Another key base likely to be targeted by Russia
is Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

The base contains roughly another 150 Minuteman
III missiles, and a staff of 3,200 military personnel and 420 civilians.

However, the town
of Minot is also more populous, with nearly 50 thousand people.

There would likely be over
23,000 immediate casualties, with another 20,000 suffering from injuries and radiation sickness.

Like Malstrom, any strike on Minot AFB would also cause huge environmental damage, with radioactive
fallout contaminating groundwater, soil, and air.

The final ICBM silo which Russia would likely
attempt a first strike on would be Francis E.

Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

The
ICBMs here would be a harder target, since they are actually spread around
in silos between Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado.

The base has roughly similar
numbers of staff and missiles to Malstrom and Minot, and casualties from a strike
would exceed 25 thousand.

Cheyenne, Wyoming would also be devastated, and anyone
present would receive a high dose of radiation.

In addition to the major silos, a Russian nuclear
attack would also target command and control centers across the country.

Many of these are
similarly hidden in rural locations around the US, often in plain sight.

One major target would be
the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base
in Colorado.

NORAD is a joint organization made up of US and Canadian service members and civilians,
responsible for aerospace protection of North America.

Unfortunately, Peterson Base has over
8,700 active duty personnel, 1,300 reservists, 1,900 civilian staff, 10,000 family members, and
over 20,000 veterans.

The base also sits just outside the city of Colorado Springs, which has
a population of nearly half a million.

A nuclear strike in this area would probably kill more
than 60 thousand people outright, and injure or irradiate another 200 thousand.

Contamination
of the water, air, and soil would again render much of the area uninhabitable, while winds could
carry it into Kansas and other neighboring states.

Another major target is Offutt Air Force Base,
just outside of Omaha, Nebraska.

Offutt is the headquarters of the US Strategic Command, or
STRATCOM.

Responsible for strategic nuclear deterrence, global strike, and operating the
Defense Department’s Global Information Grid, STRATCOM is critical to the operation of the
larger US military.

If a nuclear warhead struck Offutt Air Force Base, it could kill more than
40 thousand and injure nearly 150 thousand.

It would also seriously degrade the US ability to
coordinate a military response, and potentially create confusion within the command structure of
the armed forces.

Similarly, the nearby city of Omaha would be largely destroyed, potentially
killing hundreds of thousands.

The Missouri River would also be contaminated, leading to the
deaths of wildlife and a drop in biodiversity.

In the event that STRATCOM was hit with a nuclear
strike, its command would be transferred to one of the other 10 command and control centers
around the country.

The new command would oversee preparations for a retaliatory nuclear
strike, which could happen almost instantly, since Russia would be hard pressed
to cripple the US nuclear triad.

Yet another potential target for Russian
nukes would be the VLF, or Very Low Frequency transmitter in Cutler, Maine.

This station
transmits one-way communications to submarines in the US Navy’s Atlantic fleet, allowing them to
carry out strikes if necessary.

Culter transmits its messages at 24 kHz and only uses 1.

8 megawatts
of power, a relatively low-data rate.

It is Culter Base which sends launch codes to US Ohio-class
nuclear submarines in the Atlantic, which form the most difficult leg of the nuclear triad for
any enemy to deal with.

By destroying Cutler, Russia could theoretically cut off US contact
with the subs and make a retaliatory strike harder.

While immediate loss of life from a
strike on Cutler would be under a thousand, its position on the Atlantic coast means that
ocean life and coastal ecosystems would take most of the damage.

There is also Cutler’s counterpart
in Washington, the Jim Creek Naval Radio Station, which transmits to the pacific fleet.

It also sits
in a remote area with few potential casualties, but again, air and water contamination from
radiation could reach both Seattle and Vancouver, potentially making life in both cities hazardous.

The blast would also create huge forest fires in Washington, which could burn for weeks on end,
creating even more hazardous air conditions.

Russia would also target bases on Hawaii,
which sits roughly 2 thousand miles from the US mainland.

On the island of Oahu is another VLF
transmitter, which can relay orders to the Pacific submarine fleet if the Jim Creek installation
is damaged or destroyed.

The Lualualei transmitter unfortunately also makes Hawaii
a prime target, as it provides redundancy for fleet communications.

A Russian ICBM strike
on Oahu would also be extremely deadly, as it is the most populated Hawaiian island,
with over a million people at any given time.

Due to its isolation and contained ecology, a
nuclear strike on Oahu could make almost the entire island uninhabitable.

There are also very
few places for people to hide from such an attack, so anyone on the island would either die
quickly, or be in serious trouble.

Since Hawaii also plays host to multiple US naval
bases such as Pearl Harbor, there is also a good chance that the state would be hit with multiple
missiles, leaving no places for easy evacuation.

Every location above is a strategic military
installation, but even just nuclear strikes on those positions would kill many hundreds of
thousands of Americans.

The effect of a nuclear attack on multiple US cities would be far, far
deadlier.

If Putin truly opted for nuclear war, there is no reason to think he would
do it half way, and hitting the US’s major cities would also destroy their economic
capacity.

In a first-strike nuclear scenario, each side would try to devastate the other
beyond recovery, and that means the widespread targeting of civilians.

Such an attack could
easily be the deadliest in human history, far exceeding the only past uses of
nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Outside of Washington DC, New York City
is the most obvious civilian target.

It is both the financial capital of the
United States, and its largest city, as well as a global symbol of American
power.

It goes without saying that a nuclear explosion in Manhattan would be beyond
devastating.

The island is only 13.

4 miles long, but is one of the most densely populated areas
in the entire country.

An 800 kiloton nuclear warhead would instantly kill between 1.

5
and 2 million people, with another 3 to 5 million seriously injured from radiation, burns
or collapsed buildings.

The five boroughs of New York City collectively have almost 8.

5 million,
and every single one would have their lives upended.

Even for those who avoided the initial
blast or fireball, the shockwave’s 500 mile per hour winds could prove fatal.

As researchers
recently wrote in New York Magazine, it would “demolish the flimsiest buildings and strip
the walls and roofs off stronger structures, leaving only their naked and warped scaffolding.

It would snap utility poles like toothpicks and rip through trees, fling people through the air,
and turn brick, glass, wood, and metal into deadly projectiles.

A blast in Times Square, combined
with the fireball, would carve a crater 50 feet deep at the center of the explosion.

The shock
wave would reach a diameter of nearly 3.

2 miles, shattering windows as far as Gramercy Park
and the American Museum of Natural History.

” The city’s medical infrastructure would
strain or collapse under the burden, especially with many major hospitals
destroyed.

Similarly, evacuation from Manhattan and other boroughs would be extremely
difficult due to the destroyed buildings, collapsed tunnels and bridges, and press of
people trying to escape.

Nuclear blasts also release a strong electro-magnetic pulse, which
would knock out vital systems across the city, including electronic communication, medical
technology, and the power grid itself.

This would make any emergency response vastly more
difficult, and lead to even greater casualties.

Yet, in the event of a real nuclear war, Russia
wouldn’t stop there.

Los Angeles is another obvious target, as the country’s second-largest
city and a major source of American wealth and cultural power.

LA is not as densely populated
as New York City, with some 4 million inhabitants and sprawling, low-rise housing.

But at this point
we probably don’t need to tell you that a nuclear blast in downtown LA would also be apocalyptic.

5 to 7 hundred thousand could die instantly, with a million and a half more injured.

LA also has roughly 5.

5 million cars and little public transportation.

Because of this,
major roads even well outside the blast zone would be almost impossible to use, as people
flee from the radioactive fallout.

LA’s chronic drought would also be made far worse, potentially
leaving millions without safe drinking water.

In the middle of the country, Chicago and its
nearly 3 million residents would also likely be targeted.

A nuclear blast here could
kill 5 to 6 hundred thousand instantly, and badly injure over a million.

While a
large portion of the blast would explode into lake Michigan, with winds spreading
the fallout north, south, and east.

The heavily-populated Great Lakes region would be at
risk, and probably need to be evacuated as well.

To have any chance in a nuclear war,
Putin would need to go all out before the West could overwhelm Russia’s limited
defenses.

Because of the effects of wind, even a small percentage of the nuclear weapons
in Russia’s arsenal could spread fallout across much of the United States and make many areas
completely uninhabitable.

Being far away from the actual impact sites still might not be a guarantee
of safety, especially in more densely-populated parts of the country.

Since 80 percent of
Americans live east of the Mississippi River, any nuclear strike on the Eastern seaboard would
be especially deadly.

Overall, estimates suggest that the total number killed, injured, or exposed
to radiation in a full Russian nuclear attack could exceed 256 million.

That’s three-quarters
of the population, just in the United States.

But an attack on the US would also leave Russia
open to retaliation from other NATO countries, meaning that they too would almost certainly be
targeted early in a nuclear conflict.

This could mean major European military installations
like Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, which coordinates NATO’s air and missile defense
networks.

Spotters at Ramstein would be among the first to know if a country like Russia actually
launched nuclear ICBMs, but due to its relative geographic proximity, there would be little time
for a possible evacuation.

A nuclear blast over Ramstein could kill some 30 thousand people,
while winds could potentially carry fallout across the continent.

Assuming a retaliatory
strike didn’t just wipe Moscow off the map, this also makes European targets riskier for Putin
in the event of a nuclear attack, since at least some fallout could make it all the way back to the
Kremlin.

Other military targets in Europe which might be targeted include NATO’s Supreme Allied
Command in Belgium, as well as other US bases in Europe like Caserma Ederle in Italy, which
hosts the US’s powerful 173rd Airborne Brigade.

Strategically or economically important cities in
Europe are also potential targets.

This includes London, the most populous city in Western Europe,
with over 8.

8 million people.

The UK also has roughly 200 nuclear weapons of its own, which
also makes it a high-risk target.

Similarly to New York City, a nuclear explosion over London
could instantly kill over a million, while total casualties from the shockwave and radiation could
be over 2.

3 million.

London is also the capital of the UK, meaning that its government would also
likely perish in the blast.

As with other cities, London’s vital infrastructure would
also be completely devastated, making any emergency response very difficult.

And
coastal winds coming off the Atlantic could carry the radiation north into Scotland, and West
into France and other parts of continental Europe.

Long story short, anywhere in the world getting
hit with a modern nuclear weapon would be a horrifying scenario.

While this hypothetical
is obviously incredibly unlikely to happen, it’s also pretty obvious that if it did, there
would be basically no good options.

Because of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction which
has kept nuclear war at bay since the 1950s, governments like the US are ridiculously
unprepared to deal with the consequences if it did happen.

As the article in
New York magazine recently put it: “More than 70 years ago, America became the first
and only country to use nuclear weapons in war.

Despite witnessing the immediate and enduring
horror of those attacks — despite decades of technological advances in nuclear warfare —
the US remains shockingly unprepared for a similar assault on its own soil.

Much of the
short-term response to a nuclear explosion in a city like New York would be improvised — adapted
from plans meant for other kinds of disasters.

” Putin knows that firing even a single nuclear
weapon would likely mean the end of him, and possibly of much of Russia, but the
fact remains that nukes are out there, and could theoretically be used at any time in
the future.

In an increasingly uncertain world, it wouldn’t hurt governments around
the world to step up their nuclear preparations, because the fact is,
it’s impossible to know the future.

But what do you think? What would the
targets for a Russian nuclear attack be, and just how unprepared is the world for
that small possibility? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and don’t forget to
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