What would a Nuclear War between Russia and America really look like?

Within the first 3 minutes of a nuclear conflict, 2600 ‘high alert’ nuclear weapons are launched. They hit targets in Russia, the US and Europe. They target cities, nuclear power stations, industrial areas, oil refineries, transport hubs. In the following hours up to a further 7600 nuclear weapons are launched.

By the end of the day 600 million people are dead. They are the lucky ones.

In the following days, the unlucky survivors fall sick – poisoned by radiation from the nuclear weapons themselves and bombed out nuclear power stations, or they choke to death on clouds of poisonous gas released from destroyed factories, chemical plants and oil refineries. There is no medical help, no doctors, no nurses, no police, no electricity, no sewage, no water, no telephones, no internet. Nothing. Society has imploded.

High above the earth, in the stratosphere, millions and millions of tons of dust and smoke, hurled upwards by the almost incalculable power of nuclear weapons, form a dense layer, blocking out the sun’s light. Across the globe plants die as temperatures plummet. The rice harvest fails. The wheat harvest fails. Food production fails. Within a month, another 3 billion people are dead of starvation alone; that’s if they’ve not already died of thirst because, of course, all the world’s fresh surface water is radioactive and/or polluted with industrial chemicals

As man dies, so do the animals and the insect, entire ecosystems collapse. There’s no going back now. Extinction beckons.

After two months, 90% plus of humanity is dead. Those that do still live will not live long – their world now is a dead, radioactive ashtray in the throes of a deep, dark, nuclear winter, nothing grows, nothing lives.

Everything is dead.