It is difficult to collect information about the war in Ukraine, but one thing is clear:
blitzkrieg failed, no city was captured in a quick manner, and we suffer huge losses.
Even the official data says that our weekly losses are the biggest since World War II.
Our economy is destroyed, the life as it had been before for millions of people is cancelled,
the quality of life will soon be as it was 30-40 years ago.
There is no sign of the way out for Vladimir Putin.
He has not won and is unlikely to win the war.
Lots of war crimes have been pulled off, civilians, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been killed.
Both Putin himself and his entourage have no future.
What can happen next?
How might the situation escalate from Putin’s point of view?
He is unlikely to resign, given the salvation of Russians from genocide
and the continuation of war against fascism like in 1944 that are obscuring his mind.
There is only one move for him to escalate: to start a nuclear war.
Soon he will have to choose: to resign or to send nukes to Ukraine or one of NATO countries to force them to negotiate.
It’s highly likely that it will lead to counter-strikes, including bombing of Russian cities.
That’s why today we’ll talk of what to do if your city suffers from a nuclear strike.
When you start to discuss this topic, people just laugh nervously.
And after that everybody just refuses to discuss it saying that we are anyway going to die and doomsday will come.
But there is something to discuss:
even in cities bombed with nukes some 60% of population will die, and if you do everything correctly,
will be among the remaining 40%.
You may just find yourself among the alive and healthy. Well not seriously ill at least.
So let’s read an article from “Popular mechanics” magazine about how to behave when you’re bombed with nukes.
Usually I don’t read articles published by others on my YouTube, all our materials are original,
but in this case one couldn’t have written it better.
Before we proceed to the instruction, let us discuss yesterday’s news.
There have been two main news headlines: firstly, it’s the fight near the biggest atomic power plant at Zaporizhia
and secondly, it’s a new wave of internet blocking in Russia.
Let’s start with the blocking
One could easily predict that Meduza, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio Freedom and Facebook would be banned.
Apparently YouTube is next in line, so make sure to set up VPN
Facebook had not been working without VPN for several days running, and the last remaining major sources of independent information
(after TV Rain and Echo of Moscow were blocked) were at such an obvious risk so only the most naive people
could reckon on accessing them without VPN.
It was obvious and inevitable ever since it became clear that the situation goes from bad to worse
and it looks less like blitzkrieg or special operation.
It seemed more like a very hard long war, like it was in Chechnya, but ten times worse.
It seemed like untrained soldiers are forced to fight motivated enemies at their hostile territory — and it is that in fact.
We cannot confirm or dismiss the data from both sides, but only Russia urgently fights against independent information.
It implicitly confirms the Ukrainian data on the army of invaders.
It looks like everything is pretty bad.
If it hadn’t been like that, if it hadn’t been a try to save the army from dismorale and the public opinion from the horror of a real war,
if it had been just an act of wartime censorship, nothing would prevent it from happening the day before.
But it happened now.
At the height of fighting Russian officials did something they always tried to avoid:
suddenly intruded the lives of millions of Russian citizens.
These citizens now will not only see different prices of everything, closed shops and lack of some goods.
They will not only lose their jobs.
The quality of their everyday life will get to a much lower level.
One might miss the bombs somewhere far away, one might not know about the wounded, killed and captured.
But one can’t miss that almost all flights are cancelled, cinemas have nothing to show, payment by phone is down
and then your banking app wouldn’t receive a critical update, which will lead to its shutdown.
Of course, one can use just Odnoklassniki, watch Kiselev on TV and believe Vladimir Putin,
but one can’t leave unnoticed that the life around you, the device in your pocket, the watch on your wrist or the TV hanging on the wall
have radically changed just in three days.
This kind of tactic has been the same since 2014.
The Russian government worsens any external pressure with the internal one.
But doing that in such a hurry without thinking of the public opinion tells us a lot about people
who make such decisions and their state of mind.
Their task was to bring happiness to people with the war shown on TV, not to bomb their lives like that.
And tomorrow we’ll talk about the consequences of what was done — after it will becomes clear.
My friends, in present circumstances one needs to remember: a paid VPN service is not a luxury but a necessity.
We simply need to accept that our internet access is now $5 or $7 more expensive than before.
Otherwise you won’t have internet access, you will have something entirely different.
And it is not about having access to independent information sources anymore,
it is about vital services that may go down any moment, it is about your devices that may simply stop working.
The internet is designed in a way that mass blocking certain services will have an effect on something else.
This includes your banking application, your work email, whatever.
You will encounter unexpected and critical failures.
VPN is no longer a magic pill, but it will be easier to live through all this with it than without it.
We have decided to make this video on the possibility of a nuclear war long before this fighting near the plant took place,
but it is especially on time right now.
If our country has no doubts about fighting near (or very close to) the nuclear power plant, then a nuclear war can easily become real
So let's discuss what to do if your city is going to be hit by a nuclear bomb
Chapter one: seconds
The most “advanced” nuclear warhead that a russian citizen needs to worry about is an american W88, a 475 kilotons warhead.
That's unless Putin doesn't send a missile on some Russian or Ukrainian town.
But let's just assume it is an american missile for now.
It has an optimal detonation altitude of around 1840 meters if it is targeting a city.
First comes a flash, the sound comes much later.
If you see the flash, you should act immediately.
One third of a nuclear explosion’s energy comes as visible light and infrared emissions, peaking in one second after the explosion.
However the flash may last for more than five seconds, and if you find shelter immediately
you will be safe from most of the emissions.
Seek shelter (or at least the infamous “terrain folds”) not farther than three feet away, so that you can get there in one leap.
Your best bet would be to jump into a ditch on the side of the road farthest from the explosion.
If no other options are available, you can fall on the ground face down,
with your head away from the explosion and your hands under your body.
If you have a hood, pull it over your head while you’re falling.
If it is winter you can pull up the collar or simply cover your head in your outerwear.
To survive a nuclear blast, it is also vitally important to protect yourself from thermal radiation too.
Use solid structures or whatever object around you that can cast shadows.
Make sure to cover your skin everywhere to prevent burns.
If the explosion finds you in a car, break till full stop, put it on the handbrake and try to keep yourself below the windshield.
Oh and don’t forget to shut all the windows. If in an apartment or in an office, find cover under a nearest desk below windows,
or at least put it on a side so that the tabletop could protect you from thermal radiation.
The W88 is capable of inflicting third degree burns on an exposed skin at a distance of up to 8.76 kilometers from the epicenter.
It is the most far-reaching damaging factor a nuclear weapon has in case of an air blast,
and it’s also the most cruel: the rapid death of nerve cells will dull the pain.
If you don’t notice the damage, you may accidentally touch the burned area, causing even more harm to it.
So you rush somewhere, cover all exposed skin, and wait
If you can hear a civil defense warning - which will come 5 to 10 minutes before the bombs - your chances are way better.
Either you can get to a shelter (if you bothered to find out where it is beforehand) or you can get into a basement
assuming it is not locked.
At the very least you have the time to curtain the windows and find cover.
Half of a nuclear blast’s energy goes into a shockwave.
Most buildings within 5 kilometers from the epicenter will be at least partially destroyed.
at least partially
The wreckage is the main danger here.
Out of 340 000 people i n Hiroshima less than 80 000 died,
despite the fact that 70% of houses were destroyed.
The reason behind this is simple: a traditional japanese house built
with light wooden frames and paper walls is not as dangerous if it falls down on you.
But concrete buildings of modern cities are a lot less safe as a shelter.
A basement is relatively safe in our case.
Eizo Nomura, who lived in Hiroshima, managed to survive in a basement only
170 meters away from the blast.
It can also help with radiation: while Nomura did suffer from radiation sickness,
he lived a long life and died as an old man decades after the bombings.
All while a lot of people who were a kilometer away from the explosion still died from radiation sickness.
It is possible that the entrance will be blocked by wreckage and you will have to wait for help to come for several days.
Make sure you have enough water, shut all windows and cover all the cracks to allow as little radioactive dust inside as possible.
As a nuclear warhead yield increases, so does it’s destruction zone, but the area of gamma radiation damage doesn’t increase as much.
Gamma-photons have an extremely low wavelength and thus are easily absorbed by air.
It is worth noticing that the more powerful the warhead is, the higher it’s optimal blast altitude above a city is.
In Hiroshima it was 600 meters, and it’s three times more than that for W88.
Because of that the W88 inflicts a high gamma radiation damage (higher than 5 ziverts)
in a radius of 1.32 kilometers,
while it was 1.2 kilometers for the “little boy” in Hiroshima.
The difference is a little more than 10%, and in reality there will be even less deaths from radiation sickness than there were in 1945.
This is because the radius of a complete destruction zone in Hiroshima was only 340 meters in radius,
(the zone where pressure is above 0.14 megapascal causing 100% of buildings to be destroyed)
and severe damage zone (with pressure above 0.034 megapascals, 50% of buildings are destroyed)
radius was only 1.67 kilometers.
The complete destruction zone of the W88 detonated above Moscow on the other hand would be 1.1 kilometers,
and the severe damage zone would have a radius of 5.19 kilometers.
It is highly unlikely that any residential building within 1.32 kilometers will survive.
If you are in this zone then either you are in a basement, alive and safe from radiation, or you are dead, simple as that.
under a collapsed building.
Let’s be honest here, the radiation from W88
is only moderately dangerous for those who managed to stay alive.
Chapter 3: hours
If a nuclear war begins, it is most likely to happen after some major political escalation…
Somebody could laugh about that
Let me remind you again that this scenario was written by Popular Mechanics before the war.
Because it looks weird now, but when they were writing this they didn't expect a war like this to start
You’ve been expecting the worst and you were tuned and have been listening to the radio.
It is still the most reliable method: and by the way, get yourself a working radio.
You can’t expect millions SMS to be reliably delivered on the scale of an entire country at once.
and the internet will not be working by the time, that's for sure.
So you’ve heard the warning 5-10 minutes prior.
Let’s be honest here: bomb shelters did degrade in 30 after the Soviet Union collapsed and they are no longer reliable.
So if it’s been minutes after the explosion and you are not too far but still alive then you are probably in some ordinary basement.
So what’s next?
The best course of action – to do absolutely nothing for at least 24 hours or even several days if you have water.
It’s not likely that there would be fire.
There was an actual city-wide fire with a fire storm in Hiroshima,
but it was caused by overturned wood-and-paper houses set on fire because of defective wiring and open fireplaces.
Our damaged gas pipes could lead to explosions, but fire is a rare outcome.
Pieces of destroyed concrete walls would cover the majority of flammable materials and prevent the fire storm from spreading.
Even in Nagasaki there was no major city-wide fire.
But still is there any point sitting in the basement for days to survive a nuclear explosion?
Yes, there is, and a very good one too, especially if you are in Moscow.
In case of a global conflict the capital would be hit by so many warheads like no other city on the planet.
There are the key control centers in Moscow protected by effective ballistic missile defense.
To get to them for sure the opposing side would aim a lot of rockets at the target and with plenty to spare.
Moscow would be exposed to many nuclear strikes and some of them would be surely on-ground
in order to get to the deepest hiding places for the military and political elite.
The energy of such explosions is rapidly absorbed by the surface,
and it makes them much less destructive.
Basically, those are used to attack the deepest and most protected targets.
However, on-the-ground explosions produce a lot of dust which could cause the famous nuclear fallout.
That’s why it makes sense to wait in the basement.
The heaviest particles would fall down very fast. Moreover, they contain short-lived dangerous isotopes.
7 hours later the dose in the affected area would decrease by 10 times, 49 hours later – by 100 times,
and 14 days later – by 1000 times.
In 14 weeks, people would be able to walk in a used-to-be “red” area almost safely.
So at first it would be better to stay in the basement for several days and if you have water and food – for several weeks.
By this time, you might get some help.
If we see the flash in the sky, most of us would watch it curiously instead of seeking the hideout.
By accident we had our rehearsal. It’s almost impossible to notice the difference between the nuclear explosion and the asteroid explosion.
This fire ball exploded above Chelyabinsk in 2013 and everybody was astounded.
It’s not likely that someone dropped flat on the ground after the flash appeared.
If the nuclear war (or asteroid bigger than in Chelyabinsk) happens,
those observers would lose eyesight, face skin sensibility, and probably the skin itself.
So, in short, what to do in case of nuclear explosion:
1. Hide from light radiation immediately. If there’s nowhere to hide, lie face down with your legs towards the explosion. Protect the open parts of your body with clothes.
2. If you’ve got time to get to the hideout – run there. Take some water and food, if possible. It would help you to stay away from contaminated surface for as long as possible.
3. Do not rush to leave the hideout or basement. Do not forget that day by day the level of radiation decreases significantly.
In 14 days after the nuclear explosion, it would be relatively safe even in the used-to-be “red” area.
Let’s talk about some optimistic facts.
Theoretical models show that most of the population survives the first nuclear attacks on the cities.
Despite the stories about nuclear ashes, it’s calculated that almost 60% would survive in the USA.
In Russia due to the density of population and multistory buildings
the percent of survivors would be a bit smaller but still significant.
And what about the end of the world, nuclear winter, hunger, and the hordes of mutants?
Unfortunately, it’s not our goal to analyze urban folklore.
Therefore, we’d like to point out that it’s highly unlikely that nuclear winter actually happens.
This hypothesis was based on the assumption that fire storms could be formed
above the cities set on fire by nuclear blasts.
The soot could reach the stratosphere, higher than the clouds level, and stay there for years.
However, at the moment specialists agree that this scenario is not probable in modern megapolis.
Even if firestorms do happen, they aren’t powerful enough to lift soot up to the stratosphere.
It would rainfall from the troposphere within weeks and the sunlight would successfully reach the surface of the planet.
We shouldn’t fear global hunger either.
Mostly the residents of the cities would die – that’s to say, the consumers, not the producers of food.
Fields’ contamination would be moderate and localized since they wouldn’t attack the underpopulated rural area.
Moreover, there’re not so many long-lived isotopes left after nuclear bomb explosion –
the weight of fissile material in the bomb is too small.
Next year after the nuclear strike, radiation in the fields would be a rare problem.
Our life after the beginning of the Third World War would be extremely difficult.
But if you weren’t lucky to die during the first attack, you would have to do your best and live on.
This is how optimistically the article in “Popular Mechanics” ends.
That's it for today.
I don't see many reasons to be optimistic
Except for maybe the fact that in case of a nuclear war some of us will survive.
See you tomorrow.
Download VPN, YouTube might be off soon