How many Nuclear weapons does Russia have and will Putin use them

After the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sparked even more global concerns by putting his nuclear forces on high alert. 

We are “closer to a Third World War than at any point since the Seventies,” Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and a former British Army chemical and nuclear weapons expert, told this paper last week.

And that was before Russia’s Putin invaded Ukraine.

WW3 is the name given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to WW1 and WW2.

There are believed to be around 13,000 nuclear weapons globally, with Russia have the largest stockpile of 5,977 nuclear warheads. Although this includes about 1,500 that are retired and set to to be dismantled. The United States has 5,428.

The United Kingdom has a sea-based deterrent of about 225 nuclear warheads, delivered by at least 4 submarines.

It is unlikely that Nukes would be used on NATO countries or USA as this would put Russia in the firing line. The possible worry though is Tactical weapons use. Because Ukraine is not a NATO country, there would not be attacks from outside but it would be considered as a war crime because Russia is not under threat.

191 states, including China, France, Russia, the US and the UK, signed up to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to reduce their stockpile of warheads. 

Ukraine dismantled about 3000 after it separated from Russia and now has none.

What would the UK do if a Nuclear Attack was imminent, are there shelters?

If London was nuked the damage would reach about 10km thus Watford should be fine. Though radioactive dust could travel by the wind.

The bomb that hit Hiroshima, Japan, during World War Two, was 15 kilotons and killed up to 146,000 people.

Nuclear warheads of today are closer to 1,000 kilotons.

In the 1980s a government panthlet was posted to every household.

(PPE in Radiation Emergencies)

PROTECT AND SURVIVE 1980 NUCLEAR WAR PAMPHLET – ‘Protect And Survive: How To Survive Nuclear Armageddon (1980)’