There are tactical nuclear weapons that are more than four times as powerful.Ī Russian Yars RS-24 intercontinental-ballistic-missile system drives during a rehearsal for the Victory Day parade in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, May 7, 2015. The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki by the US during World War II had an explosive yield of just 21 kilotons, and it still killed roughly 74,000 people.

That said, these weapons are still extraordinarily powerful. The explosive yield of a tactical nuclear weapon tends to range from around 10 to 100 kilotons (a kiloton is a unit of measurement equivalent to the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT), but Russia also has low-yield nukes that fall below one kiloton. Russia is estimated to have around 1,912 tactical nuclear weapons in its arsenal, and it maintains a fully operational nuclear triad, giving it the ability to deliver nukes to their intended targets by way of land, air and sea. Russia has the largest nuclear stockpile in the world with 5,997 warheads, though roughly 1,500 are retired, according to the latest assessment from the Federation of American Scientists, and not all of Russia's active nuclear weapons are deployed.

Unlike the ICBMs whose explosive power is measured in often measured in megatons, tactical nukes are not emergency-use weapons ready to be fired at a moment's notice, arms control experts said they are aging weapons of questionable reliability that must be taken out of storage and shipped to a frontline unit for use. Russia has the world's largest arsenal of tactical nukes, weapons whose battlefield impact may be limited to destroying a dozen armored vehicles but could still kill tens of thousands if used against a city. The use of a tactical nuke would be a deliberate act - made 'in cold blood,' an expert said - that requires a multi-step process that US spy agencies may detect so far, US officials have said they've seen no signs of it. In September, Putin made a veiled reference to nuclear weapons while vowing to defend Russia's 'territorial integrity,' emphasizing that 'this is not a bluff.' Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a lot of very unsettling nuclear threats since the start of Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine, and concerns are growing as his forces lose ground that he could resort to the unthinkable and order the use of weapons of mass destruction, a nightmare scenario.

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