Russian State TV Keeps on Talking About Nuking the UK

Russian state television keeps talking about nuking the UK into oblivion with animations and graphics to illustrate how it could happen.

Dmitry Kiselyov – a television presenter known as “Putin’s mouthpiece” - said on his show on Sunday that one Russian nuclear missile could “sink [Britain] once and for all” or turn it into a “radioactive desert”.

The hypothetical situations were mapped out in response to British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who said last week that Britain “will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine,” an escalation in rhetoric which aligned the UK with Ukraine’s war aims.

Kiselyov said: “It was after British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss's unhinged statement that things might end up in a 'conflict between Russia and Nato' that President Putin has placed our nuclear defence forces on a combat alert," Mr Kiselyov said.

"And what’s going to happen after Boris Johnson’s words about a retaliatory strike? One launch, Boris, and there will be no Britain. Once and for all."

Britain is "so small that one Sarmat missile will be enough to sink it once and for all", he said. The Sarmat II missile, known as the Satan II, had its first successful test in April. The missile, which can deliver multiple warheads, has been described as “probably the most destructive single weapon on Earth” by one analyst.

Kiselyov then discussed the option of using a Poseidon torpedo to “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea”.

"The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo near Britain's coastline will cause a gigantic tsunami up to 500 metres high," he said. “This wave also carries huge doses of radiation.”

What is left of Britain would be “a radioactive desert unfit for anything for a long time."

Last week, hosts on Channel One’s 60 Minutes programme discussed the possibility of a nuclear attack on Western capitals. Viewers were shown an infographic showing how a Sarmat missile fired from Kaliningrad could hit Berlin in 106 seconds, Paris in 200 seconds and London in 202 seconds.

Aleksey Zhuravlyov, chairman of the nationalist Rodina party said, “One Sarmat and the British Isles are no more”.

Co-host Evgeny Popov cautions that, “The UK also has nuclear weapons. No one will survive this war.”

He added, “When you propose a strike with a Sarmat do you understand that no one will survive? No one on the planet.”

“We’ll start with a blank slate”, says Zhuravlyov.

On Monday, Britain said it would send another £300 million ($375 million) in military aid to Ukraine on top of the £200 million it has sent so far.

In a speech to the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday, Johnson said the country’s resistance against invasion will come to be known as their “finest hour” – a reference to a famous Winston Churchill speech celebrating British resolve during the Second World War.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended parliament for the speech, the first time he had done so since the war began.

Last week Margarita Simonyan, editor of Russian state broadcaster RT, one of the Kremlin’s highest-profile mouthpieces, told a panel show that nuclear war would be OK because "we're all going to die someday".