(CNN)“Attention attention!” the Russian voice booms out of a loudspeaker. “The atomic bombs will be launched in an hour.”
In a room designed like a Soviet-era nuclear bunker, a bunch of Russians try to prevent a catastrophic attack on the United States.
Your quest – the latest craze in Moscow – is to find the nuclear launch codes and disable a hidden red button that has already been pressed by a mad Russian general.
It’s pure fantasy; just an interactive game housed in a building in a former industrial area of the city, evoking the fears of the Cold War.
But amid current tensions with Russia, where a possible nuclear confrontation with the West has been raised again, it feels a little unsettling.
“I’m worried because there is very stupid information from both sides,” said Maxim Motin, a Russian who just finished the Red Button Quest game.
“I know that normal people around the world don’t want war,” he added.
A nation prepares for conflict
But Russian officials have been preparing the nation for the possibility of conflict, stoking deep-seated concerns about a standoff with the West, Russia’s old Cold War rival.
Russian television has broadcast a mass exercise involving up to 40 million people across the country. It is designed to prepare responses to a chemical or nuclear attack, the government says.
The video shows emergency services in hazmat suits and gas masks conducting the civil defense rehearsal, the largest of its kind since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It suggests that the Kremlin wants the Russians to take the threat of war very seriously.
Of course, total conflict between Russia and the West remains highly unlikely.
Analysts say the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction – or MAD – is still in place as a deterrent, just as it was during the Cold War.
But with tensions rising over Syria, Ukraine and the Baltic states, a small risk of contacts, misunderstandings and escalations between the nuclear superpowers has become very real, analysts say.
“I don’t think nuclear war is likely,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a well-known foreign policy journal.
“But when two nuclear superpowers operate their military machines in the same area, very close to each other, and they don’t have proper coordination, anything unintended can happen,” he told CNN.
Kremlin is playing out fears
It’s a risk the Kremlin appears to be playing as state television has stepped up its harsh rhetoric in recent weeks.
In his flagship current affairs show, Russia’s top state newsreader Dmitry Kiselyev – dubbed by critics as the Kremlin’s chief propagandist – recently issued a stark warning of a global war if Russian and US forces clash in Syria.
“Brutal behavior towards Russia could have nuclear dimensions,” he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry has also released details about the latest intercontinental ballistic missile to be added to its nuclear arsenal.
The so-called Satan 2 will be the world’s most destructive weapon and guarantee Russia’s place as a top nuclear power.
It’s an apocalyptic vision that brings another sense of realism to the fantasy quest played by gamers in Moscow.
“I know that now in schools in Russia they are telling the children that our main enemy is the USA,” said Alisa Sokoleva, another player from Moscow.
“But it sounds ridiculous to me and I’m absolutely certain that war is impossible,” she adds.
Back in the fake Cold War bunker, the Russian players have cracked the launch codes and disabled rocket launch. The United States, it seems, has once again been saved from this virtual Russian nuclear attack.
Hopefully the real world will be spared such a confrontation as well.
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