“Attention! Attention! ” blares the Ruskies voice from a loudspeaker. “The nuclear bombs will be launched in a single hour. ”
In the room styled being a Soviet-era nuclear bunker, a couple of Russians competition to prevent a devastating strike on the United States.
Their quest – the latest craze in Moscow – is to find the nuclear start codes and disconnect a hidden red key, which has already been pushed by a mad Russian general.
It’s finish fantasy; just an interactive game hosted in a creating in a former commercial area of the city, going back to the concerns of the Cold Battle.
But amid the current tensions with Russia, in which potential nuclear confrontation with the Western has again already been raised, it feels a little unsettling.
“I’m worried since there is very stupid details from both sides, ” said Saying Motin, a Russian that has just completed the particular Red Button Quest game.
“I know that normal people across the world don’t want any war, ” he added.
A nation preparing for conflict
But Russian officials have been preparing the nation for the chance of conflict, stoking deep-seated concerns about a standoff with the West, Russia’s old Cold Battle rival.
Russian television has been broadcasting the mass training exercise, involving up to forty million people across the country. It is designed to get ready responses, the government states, for a chemical or nuclear attack.
The video displays emergency workers with protective suits and gas masks top the civil protection rehearsal, the biggest from the kind since the fall of the Soviet Union. It suggests the Kremlin wants Russians to take the risk of war really seriously.
Of course , all out conflict between The ussr and the West remains highly unlikely.
Analysts say the concept of Mutually Certain Destruction – or MAD – still holds as a prevention, just as it did during the Cold War.
But with tensions increasing over Syria, Ukraine, and the Baltic claims, analysts say a little risk of contact, misunderstanding and escalation between the nuclear superpowers has become very true.
“I don’t believe nuclear war is likely, ” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russian federation in Global Matters , a prominent foreign policy diary.
“But when 2 nuclear superpowers are operating with their army machines in the same area, very close to each other and they have no proper coordination, any kind of unintended thing can happen, ” he told CNN.
Kremlin playing up fears
It is a risk the Kremlin seems keen to play up, with state tv upping its hardline rhetoric in latest weeks.
In its flagship current affairs show, Russia’s top condition news anchor, Dmitry Kiselyev – called the Kremlin’s propagandist-in-chief by critics – recently issued the stark warning of global war in case Russian and ALL OF US forces clash in Syria.
“Brutish conduct towards Russia could have nuclear dimensions, ” he declared.
The particular Russian defense ministry has also released information on the latest intercontinental ballistic missile being put into its nuclear menu.
The Satan 2 , as it’s known, will be the world’s the majority of destructive weapon, guaranteeing Russia’s place like a top nuclear energy.
It is an apocalyptic vision that provides a further sense of realism to the fantasy quest being acted out by gamers in Moscow.
“I know that now in schools in Russian federation they tell the children that our main enemy is the US, ” said Alisa Sokoleva, another Moscow game player.
“But it sounds ridiculous to me and I’m totally sure that war is impossible, ” she adds.
Back in the fake Cold War bunker, the Russian gamers have cracked the launch codes plus deactivated the missile launch. The United States, it seems, has again already been saved from this virtual Russian nuclear assault.
Hopefully, the real world is going to be spared such a confrontation too.