The sobering four-minute video produced by experts at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, depicts deadly nuclear bombs raining down on major population centres on both sides of the Atlantic. The simulation, entitled Plan A, is based on “real force postures, targets and fatality estimates”, and begins with a conventional conflict in Europe.
In a bid to stop the advance of NATO force, Russia fires a single “nuclear warning shot” from a base near the city of Kaliningrad.
In retaliation, NATO launches a single tactical nuclear air strike.
As the “nuclear threshold” is crossed, the conflict escalates into a tactical nuclear war in Europe.
Russia launches 300 nuclear warheads via aircraft and short-range missiles at NATO bases and troops, with NATO launching a salvo of 180 warheads via aircraft.
As a result, 2.6 million people are killed and wounded over the course of three hours.
London is depicted as being carpet-bombed, and Europe is devastated, at which point NATO launches a further 600 warheads from US soil and via nuclear submarines aimed at Russian nuclear forces, with Russia responding with a salvo of its own.
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The video warns: “Deaths from nuclear fallout and other long-term effects would significantly increase this estimate.”
A blog post carried on Princeton’s website said: “This project is motivated by the need to highlight the potentially catastrophic consequences of current US and Russian nuclear war plans.
“The risk of nuclear war has increased dramatically in the past two years as the United States and Russia have abandoned long-standing nuclear arms control treaties, started to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons and expanded the circumstances in which they might use nuclear weapons.
“This four-minute audio-visual piece is based on independent assessments of current US and Russian force postures, nuclear war plans, and nuclear weapons targets.
“It uses extensive data sets of the nuclear weapons currently deployed, weapon yields, and possible targets for particular weapons, as well as the order of battle estimating which weapons go to which targets in which order in which phase of the war to show the evolution of the nuclear conflict from tactical, to strategic to city-targeting phases.”
Kaliningrad is located in the Kalingrad Oblast, a Russia enclave on the Baltic Sea sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
In 2016, after years of threats, Vladimir Putin ordered nuclear-capable Iskander missiles with a range of 440 miles to be deployed in the region, putting Berlin comfortably in range.
Then-Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz described the move, likely a response to the deployment of US-controlled missile defence systems in his own country, as “very alarming”.
Russia has a total of 6,850 nuclear weapons at its disposal, while the US has 6,550. The UK has 215.