MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center has revealed that the majority of Russians (72%) can recall that nuclear weapons were actually used in military conflicts, while one-fifth (21%) could not say when this took place, according to a poll that was published on the center’s website on Tuesday.
The survey indicated that more than half of Russians (52%) are troubled by the prospects of nuclear war to a various extent. Thirty-three percent are slightly worried, while 14% are deeply anxious, and 5% said to be in "constant fear" of such a turn of events. Women are more unquiet about the possibility of a nuclear war than men (68%), as well as seniors over 60 years of age (68%). At the same time, 46% of those polled, primarily men (64%), are not concerned about the use of nuclear weapons.
Most respondents (79%) pointed out that in case of a nuclear conflict almost no one would survive, whereas 16% believed the opposite. At the same time, only 15% of Russians, primarily men (19%) and people aged 35-44 (18%) as well as those aged 45-59 (18%) know where the nearest bomb shelter is. Overall, 71% of the respondents do not know where shelters are, or if they exist at all, primarily women (73%), young people aged between 18 and 24 (74%) and seniors over 60 years of age (77%).
The majority of those surveyed (60%) stressed that the United States poses the greatest nuclear threat to Russia. Another 13% named China, while 6% believe the United Kingdom poses this kind of a threat. At the same time, 11% think that no country or organization constitutes such a danger.
The poll was conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center together with Sputnik countrywide on July 3, 2019 via telephone interview with 1,600 people aged 18 years and over. The margin of sampling error does not exceed 2.5% with a 95% probability.
The US Armed Forces carried out first atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the very end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the US Air Force’s Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress bomber dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, exploding with the energy equivalent of between 13,000 and 18,000 tonnes of TNT. Three days later, the US also bombed Nagasaki. In total, between 90,000 and 166,000 people died in Hiroshima and between 60,000 and 80,000 in Nagasaki. The bombings were justified as a way to accelerate the capitulation of Imperial Japan. These attacks are the sole instance of nuclear weapons ever being used in a military conflict in the history of humanity. The US still rejects bearing any moral responsibility for the attacks, saying that the bombings were a military necessity.