Politico: 3 possible scenarios for Putin's use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine

The American Politico website published a

on how Russian President Vladimir Putin could use nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine, noting that Putin may have to do so in case of defeat.

The following is a brief summary of the three scenarios talked about by the site:

The first: remote atmospheric testing

It is the least provocative, with Russia detonating a low-yield nuclear warhead over Novaya Zemlya, the old Soviet test site in the Arctic, for example.

While the actual damage to the ground and radiation precipitation would be closer to zero, the psychological impact can be enormous.

The site says that if it happened, it would be the first nuclear explosion by a superpower since the end of nuclear tests in 1992, and the first bomb to be detonated in the atmosphere after such tests were banned by a 1963 treaty.

He adds that such a detonation would also be a powerful reminder that Putin has tactical nuclear weapons in abundance (about 2,000 at last count) and is ready to use them.

Second: an explosion in the atmosphere over Ukraine

It is a high-altitude detonation of a more powerful weapon on Ukraine itself.

In a 1962 test, the United States detonated a 1.4 megaton hydrogen bomb in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 250 miles above the Earth's surface.

Electromagnetic pulses from that explosion disrupted street lighting and phone service in Hawaii, 900 miles away.

The site believes that a similar powerful explosion over Kyiv will not only be visually stunning, but will likely plunge the Ukrainian capital into complete darkness and long silence by disabling computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices.

The report says that electromagnetic effects may also extend to member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but the extent of damage caused by the pulse is unpredictable, and Russian communications can also be affected.

Third: Earth explosion in Ukraine

The most dangerous and perhaps the least likely is the use of a tactical nuclear weapon to achieve a concrete military objective such as disrupting the delivery of weapons to the Ukrainians.

And according to the same website, Putin might, instead, detonate a tactical nuclear warhead against military or logistical targets in sparsely populated western Ukraine, in agricultural land between Lviv and Kiev, for example, after warning people in the targeted area to evacuate.

But even the smallest nuclear weapon can set fires over a wide area if detonated with air, depending on the height of the blast, and can have radiological repercussions, possibly extending to NATO member states and Russia itself.

The report stated that there is no doubt that conducting a nuclear explosion is one of the options considered in the Kremlin, saying that this opens the door to the question of what is the best response from America or NATO.

He adds that if Putin fires a nuclear warning shot in the Ukraine war, then US President Joe Biden should resist pressure to respond in kind and avoid any options that could lead to an escalating nuclear exchange, and the US and NATO could also respond using immovable means such as electronic warfare.