“I remember reading about this 30+ years ago.”
Try researching what Russia has done in the last 5 to 8 years.
30 years ago, Soviet Union was in the middle collapsing thanks to President Reagan. Russia was not a threat.
The last 10 years Russia has been rebuilding its nuclear capabilities. Russia is a threat now, don’t be fool by how they are fighting in Ukraine. Ukraine is conventional, Nuke is a different level of danger.
I mean that they have *always* thought about civilian defense, to a degree that we never have. Even before the nuclear arms race, they had vivid experience with aerial bombardment.
Not just the subways but lots of their infrastructure was designed with bombardment in mind, starting with everything rebuilt after ww2. They have had the capacity to shelter a huge percentage of their population from fallout before we even started building backyard bomb shelters. A lot of their planning was based on what happened in WW2, even regarding conventional bombing.
Of course Russia is dangerous, it always has been, always will be.