With just over 6,000 warheads, including 1,600 that have already been deployed from the ground, from a submarine or from an airplane, President Putin now has of the first nuclear arsenal in the world. The warheads can be short range (max. 100 km), intermediate (up to 500 km) or intercontinental (+ than 500 km). “Short-range missiles cannot be intercepted, there is no time to locate them and assess their trajectory. Long-range ones, on the other hand, do, by causing an explosion near the warhead or by touching the cone. There might then be risks of radiation due to the debris falling on the ground, but these would then be local”explains André Dumoulin.
For ten years, Russia has largely modernized its arsenal. Its missiles have grown in power. Vladimir Putin is also very proud of the one that NATO has nicknamed “Satan 2”, the largest intercontinental nuclear missile ever designed, which can strike at more than 10,000 kilometers and which might, according to the Russian authorities, destroy a territory as large as France or as Texas. Until then, it was the Tsar Bomba in Siberia that was the most powerful thermonuclear bomb ever built by man. 8 meters long and with a diameter of 2 meters, the Tsar Bomba releases a power of more than 50,000 kilotons.
If it were to fall on a city hall, the nuclear fireball would then be 113 square kilometers, while a heavy blast would sweep over an area of 200 square kilometers, destroying concrete buildings and causing almost 100% fatalities. In total, more than 8,000 square kilometers would be impacted. In a country like France, for example, more than 6 million people would perish in the disaster, which would also leave more than 2.5 million injured, according to Slate. Not to mention the consequences of radiation on a much larger surface, which would inflate these morbid figures over years.
