As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s game of chicken with the U.S. and its allies over Ukraine escalates into a new round of nuclear threats, the smaller weapons that his officials have called on him to use may provide vital hours or even days of warning.
While Russia’s long-range missiles and bombers are kept on constant alert, ready to fire in just minutes to ensure they aren’t destroyed by a pre-emptive strike, lower-yielding tactical weapons are locked up in about a dozen warehouses across Russia and it would take time to transport them to launchers.
"At a certain level of readiness, weapons are taken out of storage facilities and moved to some other place, for days if necessary. This would be detected by satellites or other means,” said Pavel Podvig, a nuclear security expert at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. That would be exactly the point.