DNA Special: Can Russia launch a nuclear attack?

In the midst of this war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his country's nuclear deterrence forces to be put on an alert. It's a very big and historic event. Because earlier this happened during the Cuban conflict of 1962, when the US and the Soviet Union came face to face in Cuba.

Nuclear Deterrence Forces are the forces that control nuclear weapons in any country. And when a country issues an alert to these forces, it means that that country is asking to keep its nuclear weapons ready for its self-defence and defence.

There are only 9 countries in the world that have nuclear weapons - Russia, US, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea. And the biggest nuclear power in these countries is Russia.

Russia has the highest number of nuclear warheads, 6,255. The US has 5,800 nuclear warheads, Britain has 225, France has 290, China has 350 and India has 156. Ukraine was once the world's third-largest nuclear power, but in the 1990s it destroyed its nuclear weapons at the behest of the US and Britain. So, today, Russia can scare Ukraine with the threat of its nuclear weapons, but Ukraine does not have a nuclear weapon at all.

Belarus has said it could allow Russian warheads to enter its border for the deployment of nuclear weapons. If that happens, Russia's nuclear weapons will be all around Ukraine. Russia, Belarus Crimea, the Black Sea and eastern Ukraine will be able to launch nuclear war heads from all over the place and it will be a very dangerous situation.

However, the question in your mind will be whether Russia can use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine?

Former President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam once said that nuclear weapons prevent other countries from attacking us, so they are "weapons of peace". That is, the atomic bombs are not meant to attack but to put pressure on other countries.

In English, the word strategic deterrence is used for this, which means to develop such a power that the enemy country cannot think and attack a thousand times before attacking. And Vladimir Putin is doing the same. They want to put nuclear weapons on alert mode to put NATO countries and the US under pressure and break Ukraine's confidence. And we are saying this because, to date, more than 13,000 nuclear weapons have been developed in the world. But to this day, they have only been used once.

In 1945, the United States launched its first and last nuclear attack on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And then about 2 million people lost their lives in these attacks. But there has never been a nuclear attack in the world since then.

Here is another important information for you that, India and China have a 'No First Use' policy on nuclear weapons, which means that these countries adopt a policy of not carrying out nuclear attacks first on their behalf. Countries like the US, Russia, Britain, France and North Korea are not part of this policy. Imagine how ironic it is that countries like the US and France, which prevent other countries from developing nuclear weapons and consider them dangerous, do not themselves believe in a 'no first use' policy on these nuclear weapons.

While Russia formulated a new policy in this regard only last year, which says that if Russia feels that its national interests are being harmed, it will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons.