This was Russia today Thursday, November 6, 2025

Howdy, folks. In the mailing below, we review rising nuclear tensions between Moscow and Washington, and we summarize a recent discussion hosted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about Kathryn Bigelow’s latest political thriller. Let us know if you’re enjoying the newsletter’s new format, why don’t you.

As Putin and Trump flirt with new nuclear tests, experts dissect a Netflix thriller about an ICBM strike on Chicago

Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin instructed senior cabinet members to brainstorm proposals for restarting Russia’s nuclear weapons testing. The president’s directive comes amid rising tensions with the United States, where Donald Trump recently ordered the military to resume nuclear weapons testing after a 33-year halt. Trump’s order appears to have been a response to Russia’s latest tests of two nuclear-powered missile prototypes. It remains unclear whether the White House will insist on explosive nuclear testing. The Kremlin, meanwhile, has complained that Trump’s advisers have misrepresented the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Poseidon super-torpedo. Either way, the world now faces another escalation involving humanity’s most terrifying weapons.

On Thursday’s episode of Meduza’s daily Russian-language podcast, military expert Dmitry Kuznets described Putin’s apparent consideration of resuming nuclear weapons testing as a form of “political blackmail.” Russia’s nuclear test site in Novaya Zemlya could accommodate a surface or contained blast, but Kuznets doubted that the deep shafts needed for underground detonations still exist. He suggested that the Kremlin might decide to carry out a non-nuclear test, simulating an explosion designed to intimidate Washington without breaching the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which both the U.S. and Moscow signed but never ratified.

In this context, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow’s latest political thriller is eerily timed, having been released on Netflix just a few weeks before the current hostility flared up. A House of Dynamite stars Idris Elba as an unnamed American president who must decide how to respond when an unidentified adversary launches a single nuclear missile at Chicago. On November 6, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists — a nonprofit founded by American physicists at the dawn of the nuclear age and the keepers of the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” — hosted an online event to explore the film’s realism and political message. What follows is a summary of the expert discussion. Warning: movie spoilers ahead.

Jill Hruby, former under secretary for nuclear security at the U.S. Department of Energy, former administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and former laboratories director at Sandia National Laboratories

• The likelihood of an ICBM slipping through America’s early warning systems is low. These systems “are really good,” Hruby stressed. “From my perspective, it was sort of contrived.” Even the premise of a cyber-attack knocking out these systems underestimates how robust they are.
• A single missile carrying a single warhead, without any decoys, is the simplest scenario possible in such an attack. “We have to be careful that the take-home message from this isn’t that we need more missile defense to shoot down ICBMs or ballistic missiles, because it’s always going to be hard, and it’s actually much harder than was depicted in the movie.”
• In the film, the U.S. president’s advisers steer him toward authorizing a nuclear retaliation, but “there will always be non-nuclear options presented to the president, not just nuclear options, in response.” Also, in a scenario where a single U.S. city were targeted by an unknown enemy, “you wouldn’t be pushed, your back wouldn’t be against the wall in the same way as if there were a lot of missiles.” Hruby explained: “The scenario where you have to make quick decisions is really about a scenario where we feel like our second strike capability is being wiped out or our missile fields are being wiped out.”

Major General Robert H. Latiff, USAF (Ret.), adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame, and former Cheyenne Mountain NORAD complex commander

• Emergencies involving nuclear weapons are heavily rehearsed in the U.S. military. “We train for it endlessly,” Latiff said. “There are very, very specific procedures they go through, even under a lot of stress.”
• In the film, U.S. missile defense fires two interceptors at the inbound ICBM but fails to destroy the missile. In reality, the military would likely fire more than two interceptors, but the film accurately shows that Alaska-based defenses couldn’t intercept an ICBM after it reaches apogee and begins its descent. “It would be a tail chase. Trying to catch it from where they’re stationed in Alaska would have been impossible.”
• Asked what he would do if the president ordered him to carry out “the wrong decision,” Latiff said his only choice would be “to disobey the order and retire.” “He’ll find somebody else to do whatever it is he wants them to do.”
• In the film, the retaliation options presented to the U.S. president are styled as “rare, medium, and well-done,” but the real materials would be contained in “packages based upon ‘Do you want to do this?’ ‘Do you want to send a message?’ ‘Do you want to destroy the place?’ and then he chooses from those packages.”

Alex Wellerstein, associate professor and director of the Science and Technology Studies program at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and creator of the popular Nuke Map

• The film depicts the ICBM bound for Chicago as certain death for the metropolitan area’s 9 million inhabitants, but that estimate would be impossible to make without knowing the detonation site and yield, which would in turn require knowing who fired it. The movie treats everyone in the city as good as dead, but “the reality would be more complicated,” and alerting the public to take cover would be a reasonable mitigation strategy.
• Besides the technical obstacles to building effective missile defense, the problem is that adversaries can and will always pursue solutions, resulting in a world you may not want to live in. “You don’t get the political situation that you want out of that because our enemies are not simplistic.”
• The film accurately portrays the U.S. president as someone who may be largely unfamiliar with America’s protocols for a nuclear attack. “If a president doesn’t want to learn something, they don’t have to learn it, right?” Throughout history, some presidents have become deeply informed and interested in these policies, but others “have essentially indicated that they had very few briefings.”

What about the movie’s ending? A House of Dynamite ends on a cliffhanger — the U.S. president cracks open “the biscuit” containing the authentication codes needed to order a nuclear strike, but we never learn his actual orders. Will he unload America’s arsenal on Russia? China? North Korea? Maybe he’ll back down at the last second? 

All three experts who joined Thursday’s discussion praised the film’s decision to withhold certainty. “I thought it was the only plausible ending,” Wellerstein said, arguing that offering a conclusion would have allowed audiences to dismiss the problem as either resolved or too far-fetched. Latiff stressed that “there are highly competent people who spend all of their time, their lives, trying to make sure that these incredibly destructive weapons are kept safe and secure,” but the system remains “fragile enough that we have to continue to worry about it.” “This is not a technical problem. It’s a human problem.” 

Hruby commended the movie for sparking a conversation and highlighting the “disconnect between experts and political leaders.” The film’s politicians are portrayed as somewhat unprepared, while the military experts are “sometimes too eager.” “I think that’s a dynamic that is worth discussing and debating in the real world,” Hruby explained.

The Archive Collection: Nothing can stop Meduza from releasing anniversary merch — even if we have to make it ourselves. Check out our latest drop now!

We have a new tradition here at Meduza: every year on our birthday, we update the merch in our online store, Magaz. In 2025, we turned 11 — and despite the considerable challenges we’ve faced this year, we’ve found a pretty original way to bring you a new collection. Here’s a look at the latest clothing and accessories you can buy to rep Meduza and support our work.

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Today’s reporting from Meduza

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Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has been under martial law, suspending elections and consolidating power around President Volodymyr Zelensky, though signs of renewed political competition are emerging as the war drags on. Analyst Balázs Jarábik tells Meduza that with Donald Trump pushing for a peace deal and local tensions rising, Ukraine’s political “unfreezing” has begun even as martial law and wartime priorities keep Zelensky firmly in control.

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Russian forces have advanced deep into Pokrovsk, threatening to encircle Ukrainian troops defending the nearby city of Myrnohrad, while Ukraine vows counterattacks instead of withdrawing. At the same time, Russian units are pressing offensives in Kupyansk and Vovchansk, tightening pressure across eastern Ukraine as supply routes for Ukrainian forces grow increasingly precarious.

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A Russian medical student named Sergey was arrested after reading online about Ukraine’s Azov Regiment while riding a bus, accused of violating a new law that bans searching for “extremist” content. His case, later returned to police for lack of proof of intent, highlights how swiftly Russian authorities can act on citizens’ Internet activity under expanding surveillance powers.

🕯️ Ex-policeman allegedly murders pageant queen in Russia’s Buryatia after failing to obtain refugee status in U.S.

Russian investigators say a former police officer murdered beauty pageant winner Seseg Buinova and two others in Buryatia after returning from the U.S., where he’d failed to obtain refugee status and struggled financially. Authorities believe he killed the victims in April 2024, then died by suicide after setting fire to a garage to destroy evidence.

👑 Homo Putinus: In April, Kremlin ideologist Alexander Kharichev wrote a ‘blueprint for Putinism.’ In his new essay, he envisions Russia’s ‘person of the future.’

Kremlin ideologist Alexander Kharichev published a new essay outlining his vision for Russia’s “person of the future,” promoting philosophy courses, large families, and self-sacrifice as key national values. Expanding on his earlier “blueprint for Putinism,” he warns of internal division and demographic decline while calling for laws and education reforms to strengthen patriotic unity.

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