Will Lockett
Putin seems to be on a nostalgia trip and is desperately trying to relive his Cold War days. Not only has he sparked a deadly war to try and reclaim the old Soviet state of Ukraine, but he is also throwing nuclear threats at the West left, right, and centre. In fact, these nuclear threats are why NATO hasn’t been able to support Ukraine’s independence as much as they want to, given that they can’t risk starting a global nuclear war that could wipe out humanity as we know it. Fortunately, thanks to a quirk of nuclear physics, there is a chance that Putin’s nuclear weapons have been rendered useless. But how? And what does this mean for Ukraine and NATO?
To fully understand why Russia’s nuclear weapons might be a dud, we first need to understand what type of nuclear weapons Russia has.
Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, with 4,447 active strategic nuclear weapons and 1,912 tactical nuclear weapons in reserve (all of which are ready to be rolled out quickly). The difference between these two types of weapons is surprisingly small, but they have a massive impact on how they are used and the logistics surrounding them. Strategic nuclear weapons are what you might consider a “typical” nuclear weapon, i.e., an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) designed to wipe out a city on the other side of the world. Russia’s ICBMs have many designs and have a yield (the size of the explosion measured in an equivalent explosion in tonnes of TNT) of 300–800 kilotonnes. For reference, 300 kilotonnes is enough to destroy the whole of Washington. Tactical nuclear weapons are far smaller and can be fired from artillery guns as shells or from small truck-mounted missile launchers, meaning they have a range of up to 1,500 km. This is due to the fact that they are designed to be used in active combat against the military, so rather than destroying a distant city, they are intended to eliminate specific positions, bases, or military infrastructure. As such, they also have a much smaller yield of 1–50 kilotonnes.
But these two types of nuclear weapons actually use very different types of nuclear reactions. You see, to fit a nuclear bomb into a shell or small missile, it has to be a pure fission bomb, as this design is relatively compact. All fission bombs’ main explosion comes from a nuclear decay reaction, and all early nuclear weapons used this design. But this technology is very inefficient when making a nuclear bomb with a yield of over 50 kilotonnes. Instead, these larger bombs use the thermonuclear design. Thermonuclear weapons use a small fission bomb to heavily compress and heat a capsule of hydrogen, which then undergoes fusion and releases far more energy than the ignition fission reactions, allowing for effective giant bombs. (To read more about fusion, click here).
This is where Russia’s problem comes in.
You see, a thermonuclear bomb needs two very specific isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium (hydrogen with one neutron in its nucleus) and tritium (hydrogen with two neutrons). This is due to the fact that these two isotopes fuse together at much lower energies than any other, allowing the bomb to function. But there is an issue. While deuterium is a naturally occurring and stable isotope which we can easily extract from water, tritium is highly radioactive, with a half-life of only 12.5 years, and as such, needs to be artificially made.
We make tritium by irradiating lithium in nuclear reactors and then painstakingly extracting the gas that is emitted. It may sound simple, but the complexity and cost of this process are astronomical, which is why tritium is one of the most expensive materials ever made at $30,000 per gram!
So why is this a problem for Putin’s nuclear weapons?
Well, thermonuclear weapons need a certain amount of tritium to work. Because tritium decays away very quickly, they need to be routinely topped up with tritium at great expense, which is something Russia may struggle to do.
You see, Russia has an economy smaller than the state of New York, yet they are somehow running a full-scale invasion, fending off international sanctions designed to cripple their economy, and still have to refine enough tritium to keep their 4,447 thermonuclear weapon arsenal topped up.
The Russian military is already showing signs of being severely underfunded. For example, Russian troops are expected to buy their own body armour as the state can’t afford to. It is also arguable that the conflict in Ukraine is more important to Putin than keeping his nuclear deterrent operating at full capacity. After all, if Putin loses the war in Ukraine, he will likely also lose power back home in Russia.
So, there is a chance that Putin is saving his cash by halting tritium production and refuelling to focus on Ukraine. As such, his threats of nuclear attacks and escalating international nuclear war might be a complete bluff.
Sadly, if this situation is happening, it doesn’t really help Ukraine. Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons don’t need this expensive refuelling, and they will be far more helpful for the Russian invasion. So there is still a significant risk of a nuclear attack on Ukraine. While tactical nuclear weapons may seem tiny compared to thermonuclear weapons, don’t forget that the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was only 15 kilotonnes, and Russia’s tactical Iskander-K nuclear missile has a yield of up to 50 kilotonnes. So even these “little” bombs can be devastating.
We also can’t guarantee that this is happening in Russia. Putin may be prioritising the production of tritium. After all, he, of all people, knows the power of a nuclear deterrent. There is also the possibility that Russia has enough tritium stockpiled away to see them through this conflict. However, this is unlikely as it makes little sense to stockpile a material with such a short shelf-life.
This means that, while there is a chance that Russia’s most powerful weapons are now nearly useless, there is also a chance that they are just as deadly as they always have been. However, if it is true and the threat of Russian nuclear annihilation is gone, this could allow NATO to finally offer their full support to Ukraine and push the Russian tyrant back to where he belongs. Unfortunately, if Putin is withholding vital funds from his crumbling military to keep his nuclear deterrent fully active, it may show us that he is willing to take the ship down with him. For all of our sakes, let’s hope it is the former.
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