Russian and before them the Soviet doctrine has always been that nuclear war is winable. They have shelters not only in Moscow but every major City. St Petersburg subways have huge blast doors on all the exits and in the train tunnels so Moscow I have seen both with my own eyes. Russia spans 12 timezones its the largest country by landmass on.earth. There is no way to irradiated enough of the forests and farmlands to.make it uninhabitable. Fallout peaks immediately after the blast and over the next two.weeks drops off by orders of magnitude by a month even in the direct fallout plume of a surface burst one could leave a bunker and make the surface transportation even walking to leave that area without getting near a LD50 REM dose. By a year later you could move back with only slightly higher then background levels of radiation. There are 4 long lived isotopes they are all water soluble the rain will wash most into the local watersheds diluting them over time. Iodine, and strontium are the two that bioaccumulate. Grass to.cows to milk for strontium specifically. Even then only the direct fallout plume paths would have long term levels. Moscow has shelter space for every resident and food for three months plenty of time to ride out peak fallout. What has the USA done for its citizens? That says something about which government values it’s citizens doesn’t it.
Informative post. And I suspect Putin sees the American population as a bunch of social misfits, with men claiming to be women, and woman men, etc. If he is as crazy as we are being told to believe he is, then in his mind he may be doing civilization a favor if he irradiates us.