Americans’ nuclear fears surge to highest levels since Cold War

At a moment when the global COVID-19 pandemic is finally loosening its grip on the public consciousness as an object of existential dread, a new fear has swept in to supplant it: nuclear annihilation.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has stoked U.S. nuclear fears like no other event since the close of the Cold War, according to foreign policy scholars and public opinion curators. In poll after poll this year, a majority of Americans have said they believe Russian President Vladimir Putin may unleash nuclear weapons on Ukraine, as Putin himself has threatened.