Chilling video shows how ’34m people would die in hours’ if Putin launched his nukes

A horrifying video by researchers at Princeton University simulates how a nuclear war between the US and Russia might unfold, estimating that tens of millions would perish in the first 24 hours alone.
Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security (SGS), previously developed simulation called PLAN A, showing “a plausible escalating war between the United States and Russia using realistic nuclear force postures, targets and fatality estimates”.
Published on YouTube in September 2019, the chilling four-minute animation gives a blast-by-blast account of how a conventional conflict between Washington and Moscow could, through mounting escalations, build up to an all-out nuclear war.
It begins in the context of a conventional war, with Russia launching a nuclear warning shot from a base near Kaliningrad, a city situated between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Coast, in the hopes of halting an advance by the US and NATO.
But the alliance then retaliates with a tactical nuclear airstrike, and the fighting quickly escalates to a tactical nuclear war in Europe.
Sobering text appears, explaining that in the next phase, “Russia sends 300 nuclear warheads via aircraft and short-range missiles to hit NATO bases and advancing troops,” while NATO responds with approximately 180 nuclear warheads via aircraft.
The exchange of warheads inflicts 2.6million casualties over three hours.
With Europe all but flattened in the firestorm, NATO launches a strategic nuclear strike of 600 warheads from US land and submarines aimed at Russian nuclear forces.
Before its nuclear systems are wiped out, Russia launches on warning, sending missiles hurtling towards the US from “silos, road-mobile vehicles and submarines”, with 3.4million casualties inflicted over the course of 45 minutes.
In the most devastating phase so far, Russia and NATO target each other’s 30 most populace cities and economic centres in a bid to inhibit recovery, with five to 10 warheads striking each city depending on the size of the population.
This next 45-minute period sees 85.3 million casualties. The video ends with an estimate that these series of exchanges would cause a total of 91.5 million immediate casualties, including 34.1million deaths.
However, the estimates are only of acute deaths from nuclear explosions and would be “significantly increased by deaths occurring from nuclear fallout and other long-term effects”, SGS said at the time.
The simulation was made some two-and-a-half years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, and is based the data available at the time, and the assumption that NATO and the US would be walking in lockstep – something which may be more of an open question if US President-elect Trump follows through on threats to withdraw from NATO.
The SGS, which conducts scientific, technical and policy research, analysis and outreach to advance national and international policies, said the project was “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.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose military boasts is thought to boast over 5,580 nuclear warheads, has reactivated old fears about the prospect of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange with his recent warnings to Ukraine’s allies in the West.
On Tuesday Putin, 72, lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, apparently in response to the US giving Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia.
However, analysts have suggested that the changes are largely semantic, and suggest Putin is accutely aware of the catastrophic damage a nuclear firefight would bring.
Though it’s not inconceivable that Putin would resort to such a desparate measure, the nuclear threats from the Kremlin that have punctuated the conflict are largely seen as an effort to deter allies of Kyiv from providing further military aid.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week, “I don’t see a change in their strategic force posture and so we’ll continue to remain vigilant in this regard.
“He has rattled his nuclear saber quite a bit and this is dangerous behavior,” Austin said of the Russian President.