The potential for war between Russia and the West has not abated after London declared Moscow's invasion of Ukraine had begun. Under these circumstances, researchers warn of the dangers of Moscow's nuclear weapons if they strike London.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Moscow invasion had begun after Russia deployed peacekeeping military forces to eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The troop deployment came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin late Monday officially recognized Donetsk and Luhanks as independent nations. For your information, Russia currently has 6,257 nuclear weapons. The United States has 4,018 units and the UK only 225 units.
According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW): "Less than one percent of the world's nuclear weapons could disrupt the global climate and threaten as many as two billion people with starvation in a nuclear famine."
"Thousands of nuclear weapons in the possession of the US and Russia could cause a nuclear winter, destroying vital ecosystems on which all life depends."
The online tool Nukemap and its sister site Missilemap – built by nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein – help visualize how enormous that reality can be. Of Russia's 6,247 nuclear weapons, 527 are mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers.
The ICBM can reach a top speed of four miles per second in about ten minutes after launch, meaning the monstrous weapon could potentially reach the UK from Russia in as little as 20 minutes.
Army veteran and nuclear war researcher Christopher Witman, as quoted by Express.co.uk, Thursday (24/2/2022), warned that if Russia attacked Britain with a nuclear bomb, it would wipe out six Air Force Bases (RAF) and three Air Force Bases. Laut (NAB) in just 20 minutes.
The six RAF Base areas at risk are Flyingdales in Yorkshire, Alconbury near Huntingdon, and Lakenheath and Mildenhall both in Suffolk. Then RAF Base Croughton in Northamptonshire and Barford St John in Oxfordshire.
Meanwhile, the three Royal Naval Bases that are potential targets for Russian nuclear weapons are HNMB Clyde in Scotland, HNMB Devonport in Plymouth, and HNMB Portsmouth. Russia recently launched two military ballistic missiles in a test ordered by Putin as tensions with the West escalate.
"All missiles hit their targets, confirming their performance objectives," the Kremlin said, announcing the results of its ballistic missile tests.
In the Kremlin's latest missile test, which Putin watched on screen with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, an ICMB was fired into northwestern Russia. Another one was fired from a submarine in the Barents Sea, which reportedly hit a target thousands of kilometers away on the far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka.
"Such a test launch is, of course, impossible without the head of state. You know about the famous black suitcase and its red buttons," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
It comes as tensions between Russia and the West have escalated over the threat of a troop increase on the Ukrainian border, which is now reported to have reached 190,000.
But these tensions almost reached a boiling point when Putin chose to recognize two Ukrainian territories as independent and sent troops to two rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine.
Now, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now announced a series of tough sanctions. Five Russian banks in the UK have their assets frozen. In addition, three Russian billionaires were banned from traveling to the UK.
Johnson said in the House of Commons: “The Council should have no doubt that this deployment of Russian troops on the territory of sovereign Ukraine is tantamount to a new invasion of the country.
"And by denying Ukraine's legitimacy as a state and presenting its existence as a mortal threat to Russia, Putin is establishing a pretext for a full-scale invasion."
US President Joe Biden shared Johnson's line, also seeing Russia's move into Ukraine as "the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine".
