How far a nuclear blast could spread as Russia sends chilling threat to strike 23 UK locations

The latest blather from Russia about how much it would love to bomb the UK involves it claiming it's got 23 targets it could hit in the event of an all-out war.

The country has done a lot to raise global tensions over the course of its invasion of Ukraine, largely due to instigating the biggest and deadliest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

However, Russian provocation hasn't ended with Ukraine, as it's made repeated prods at NATO by sending planes and drones over, while it's threatened countries which have been supplying the Ukrainians with weapons to help repel Vladimir Putin's invading armies.

Poland has shot down some of Putin's drones while Russian aircraft were spotted violating the airspace over Estonia, but the Russian dictator's propagandists really seem to have it in for the UK.

This threat to strike 23 locations is just the latest in a very long line of threats about them using their nuclear arsenal against Britain, but what would the actual damage be if they did?

One of these lands on a city and suddenly there's no more city, think Putin's compensating for something? (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)

To explain that, the blast radius of a nuclear bomb depends on several factors, including how powerful the weapon is and where it detonates.

A nuclear blast which strikes the ground will have a bigger initial fireball that'll destroy anything in the immediate area but a smaller radius of overall damage, while one which detonates in the air will have a smaller fireball but a bigger blast damage radius.

Then you've got to account for the wind carrying the radioactive fallout elsewhere and the poison from one bomb can spread rather far.

Say, for example, the Russians decided to launch a 200 kiloton RS-24 Yars at the fine city of Manchester and hit it dead on centre, according to Nukemap the initial fireball would have a radius of 0.45 miles which doesn't sound like much but is near enough to swallow up almost all of the city centre.

At least Stockport would be safe, assuming only one warhead was fired (Nukemap)

The next ring of destruction marks the radius of heavy blast damage, which would shred buildings and kill almost everyone.

Nukemap suggests this blast radius would run right down the middle of the pool at the aquatics centre, which would spoil anyone's swim.

Far beyond that is a likely fatal dose of radiation for anyone around within the month, and the further you go the less the damage is but we're moving down from total destruction into the ranks of widespread death and devastation.

Even four miles away from the centre of the blast there'd be damage, and that's just from one nuclear warhead, most likely there'd be plenty more coming down to ensure more coverage than a mobile data network.

Pretty much everything about nuclear weapons makes one think it'd be best if we never used them.