[quarterdime]

From that wikipedia link: "Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in 1992 said that the Russians had a system, to be activated only during a crisis..."

Activated only during a crisis? In late February Putin announced that "deterrence forces" were placed on high alert. Reporting on the topic was vague, with no answers about what this announcement meant. In a Reuters article after that announcement, an unnamed US official said this was "putting in play forces that, if there's a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous" [0]. I wonder if Putin's announcement meant activating this dead hand system.

Finally I suggest watching Dan Ellsberg's "Doomsday Machine" talk [1].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-strategic-missile-forc... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7cJG9j0NdY