Advanced Nuclear War Simulator Creator Lived Near Soviet A-Bomb Test Site

A man who lived near an atomic bomb test site in the former Soviet Union is developing an advanced simulation tool to raise awareness about the risks of nuclear war.

Ivan Stepanov is a simulation engineer who was born in the city of Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, which is just under 100 miles away from a site where Soviet authorities once tested most of their nuclear weapons.

This experience had a profound impact on Stepanov and was one of the reasons he decided to begin developing his Nuclear War Simulator (NWS), an advanced nuclear conflict simulation and visualization tool.

"The biggest motivation to create this software is the constant threat of nuclear war," Stepanov, who now lives in Germany, where he studied physics at university, told Newsweek. "The consequences of such a conflict would be catastrophic, and this threat is one of the biggest problems humanity is facing today.

"It is an extremely important topic, and I believe there needs to be an interactive simulation of a nuclear conflict available to the public," he said.

When growing up in Semipalatinsk, he used to collect information about nuclear weapons and the consequences of their use, Stepanov said.

"There were regular underground weapons tests which everyone was experiencing as earthquakes," he said. "One of my family members was working on the test site building the tunnels for underground tests. For us, it was normal to live there and there wasn't any danger to us because the city was far enough away to not be affected by the fallout. However, I was aware that a large number of people were negatively affected by the radiation, especially villagers living close to the test site."

"After studying physics, I decided to create an interactive simulation that can be used to simulate nuclear conflicts," he said. "I hope that this simulation will add to public awareness of the threat of nuclear weapons and will contribute to the solution of this problem."

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, tensions between the West and Russia have risen significantly, leading to increased discussions about the potential outbreak of nuclear war.

Today, there are an estimated 13,000 nuclear weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, around 90 percent of which are in the hands of Russia or the United States.

Stepanov's simulator, which has yet to be released, is a detailed, realistic simulation and visualization of large-scale nuclear conflicts and their consequences.

Using the tool, which has a three-dimensional map of the Earth, you can design nuclear conflict scenarios between major powers and see how they play out.

Users can design warheads, place missile silos and carriers on the map, and execute attack plans, among other features. The effects of the nuclear blasts, such as the heat and radiation produced, as well as estimated fatalities are also modeled. The tool even estimates the effects of a nuclear winter following a nuclear war, using a simplified model.

Stepanov said he has tried to make the simulation as realistic as possible, particularly in terms of the effects of nuclear weapons on population centers.

"NWS is using a high-resolution population density map and calculates fatalities from [the] blast, thermal radiation, prompt ionizing radiation, fires and nuclear fallout. Publicly available models for the effects of nuclear weapons are used in the simulation," he said.

The simulation uses a database of various pieces of civilian infrastructure, including power plants, hospitals, airports, harbors and refineries.

You can even use the tool to track the effects on individual humans, who are capable of traveling around the map and taking shelter.

On the military side, NWS attempts to simulate the dynamics of a nuclear conflict by taking into account the most important characteristics and constraints of the nuclear warhead delivery systems, according to Stepanov.

"The simulation includes missile silos, aircraft, submarines, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and gravity bombs," he said.

Stepanov has not yet finished developing the simulation, and while there is no fixed release date, he is hoping it will be ready by early next year.

Other simulators and tools that model the impact of a nuclear blast or full-blown nuclear war include NUKEMAP, which was created by Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear weapons and an associate professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.

There is also the "Plan A" four-minute audiovisual piece, which was developed by researchers associated with Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security.