Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February. All the NATO countries including US have been helping Ukraine with military weapons to fight Russia. After 6 months, Russia has not succeeded to conquer Ukraine. As the war drags on, I am afraid Russian President Putin might be tempted to use nuclear weapons.

Since many NATO countries also have nuclear weapons, a nuclear war would be mutually assured destruction and millions of people in Russia and in Europe would be killed.

Countries with nuclear weapons are shown below:

Consequences of a nuclear war:       

The mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radio active fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization and, in the worst case, extinction of humanity and/or termination of life on Earth.

Besides the immediate destruction of cities by nuclear blasts, the potential aftermath of a nuclear war could involve fire storms, a nuclear winter, widespread radiation sickness from fallout, and/or the temporary (if not permanent) loss of much modern technology due to electromagnetic pulses.

Some scientists, such as Alan Robock, have speculated that a thermonuclear war could result in the end of modern civilization on Earth, in part due to a long-lasting nuclear winter. In one model, the average temperature of Earth following a full thermonuclear war falls for several years by 7 – 8 °C (13 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit) on average.

The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War believe that nuclear war could indirectly contribute to human extinction via secondary effects, including environmental consequences, societal breakdown, and economic collapse.

The threat of a nuclear holocaust plays an important role in the popular perception of nuclear weapons. It features in the security concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and is a common scenario in survivalism..