WASHINGTON, D.C.: For decades, children in the United States and the Soviet Union were drilled on what to do in a nuclear war. One year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, could the danger have returned for new generations?
Within days of Moscow's attack, President Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilization of Russian nuclear forces, stunning the world.
Washington bashed such talk as "dangerous" and "irresponsible," and warned Moscow of "catastrophic consequences."
But Moscow kept up its threats, giving rise to deep worries that Putin was willing to start a nuclear exchange that could trigger an all-out apocalypse.
"We have not seen a public announcement from the Russians regarding a heightened nuclear alert status since the 1960s," said Avril Haines, US director of national intelligence.
And President Joe Biden warned that the world risked nuclear destruction for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
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Russian officials sought to clarify their stance, saying the country would only use nuclear weapons if it were facing an "existential threat."
But in September, when Putin declared the annexation of four Ukraine regions, the question was: would attacking them amount to an "existential threat" to Russia?
Though there was no sign of Russian nuclear mobilization, in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its "Doomsday Clock" forward to just 90 seconds to midnight, signaling its view that the destruction of humanity was closer than ever.
"Russia's thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict — by accident, intention, or miscalculation — is a terrible risk," the Bulletin said.
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