Will there be a nuclear war and what would happen?

RUSSIA'S deputy ambassador to the UN has said that Russia retains the right to press the nuclear button.

Top Russian diplomat Dmitry Polyanskiy told Sky News that if provoked by Nato, Vladimir Putin could resort to using nuclear weapons.

Will there be a nuclear war?

Top Russian diplomat Polyanskiy told Sky News that the country could use nuclear weapons if it feels it's facing an existential threat.

When asked about Russia's position over using nuclear weapons, Polyanskiy said: "If Russia is provoked by Nato, if Russia is attacked by Nato, why not, we are a nuclear power.

"It's not the right thing to threaten Russia, and to try to interfere.

"So when you're dealing with a nuclear power, of course, you have to calculate all the possible outcomes of your behaviour."

Following the international outrage over Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, President Putin announced that he would be putting his nuclear forces onto a special alert in early March 2022.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC: "We will not do anything to escalate in that area, we will not do anything to feed any miscalculation - we take it very, very seriously.

"But at the moment this is a battle of rhetoric that President Putin is deploying.";

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been ongoing since just days after the start of the invasion.

So far no ceasefire has been engineered, despite thousands of Ukrainians being killed, and up to 10 million having fled the country.

Nuclear weapons have only been used once before, when the United States attacked two Japanese cities at the end of the Second World War.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in August 1945, killing over 126,000 people.

What would happen in a nuclear war?

The full extent of all-out nuclear war is unknown but believed to be wide reaching and catastrophic.

Any city that was hit with a nuclear blast would be completely destroyed and millions would be killed.

There are also likely to be long term side-effects of the fallout.

Widespread radiation sickness could impact survivors and surrounding wildlife.

Temporary, or possibly permanent, loss of technology due to electromagnetic waves is another possibility.

Experts also warn of a nuclear winter caused by the blast which could reduce the worldwide temperature by 7°C for several years, and lead to failed crops and widespread famine.

In short, nuclear war would be a worldwide disaster, collapsing civilisations of both the target nation and those around it.

Who has nuclear weapons?

There are nine nations who have admitted to having nuclear weapons, but not all of these are classed as nuclear-weapon states.

Russia is one of the nations under the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), as is the United Kingdom.

NPT is an international treaty aimed at reducing the spread of nuclear weapons.

Other nuclear capable countries are:

• France
• China
• The United States
• Pakistan
• India
• North Korea
• Israel