‘Nuclear war? Well, we all die someday...’ Chilling WW3 threat from Kremlin’s TV mistress of spin
THE UK’s Defence Secretary played down Russian threats of nuclear escalation yesterday as a leading Kremlin propagandist said ‘World War Three’ was the most likely outcome of its invasion.
Ben Wallace said he does not believe Vladimir Putin will pull the nuclear trigger but emphasised Britain’s Trident submarine fleet is ‘waiting’ if the worst happens.
But hours earlier, the editor of Russia’s state broadcaster speculated during a chilling TV appearance that a nuclear strike was the ‘more probable’ outcome before adding: ‘We’re all going to die someday.’
RT chief Margarita Simonyan said: ‘I think that the most realistic way is the way of World War Three, based on knowing us and our leader, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, knowing how everything works around here, it’s impossible – there is no chance that we will give up.’
She added: ‘This is to my horror, on one hand, but on the other hand, with the understanding that it is what it is.’
The show’s host Vladimir Solovyov, one of Russia’s most notorious propagandists, then responded menacingly: ‘But we will go to heaven while they will simply croak.’
Meanwhile, Mr Wallace sought to calm fears of a nuclear conflict yesterday following several thinly-veiled threats from Rus
sia in recent days. he told LBC: ‘I don’t feel rattled by it because we have a strong armed forces and nuclear deterrent and we’re part of a Nato partnership of 30 nations who outgun him, outnumber him and have potentially all the capabilities at our disposable.
‘I don’t fear him. I think we should be very grateful that we have a nuclear deterrent.
‘I think that is a really important part of his calculations. There are many who have wanted to get rid of it over the years.
‘I am very grateful that somewhere under the sea, some amazing men and women are deep underwater, hiding, waiting in case Britain needs to be protected.’
Britain always keeps at least one nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine at sea. Putin’s spokesman said yesterday that Europe’s ongoing military support for Ukraine ‘threatens the security of the continent’.
A day earlier, the Russian president said it has ‘all the tools’ for a ‘lightning-fast’ military response to Western threats, adding: ‘We have all the weapons we need for this. No one else can brag about these weapons, and we won’t brag about them. But we will use them.’
Mr Wallace said the Russian leader is a ‘very unpredictable man’ and ‘usually his decisions backfire’, adding: ‘his so-called lightning invasion of Ukraine hasn’t gone too well.’ The US has said Russia’s ‘loose talk’ on nuclear weapons is ‘the height of irresponsibility’. On Tuesday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned the risk of nuclear war is ‘very significant’. Moscow claimed its new nuclear-capable Sarmat missiles, nicknamed ‘Satan 2’, will be deployed by autumn following a successful test last week. It has also threatened to deploy nuclear weapons to the Baltics if Finland, its neighbour, and Sweden decide to join Nato.
Mr Wallace warned Russia could ‘dig in’ to Ukraine like a ‘cancerous growth’ after its failure to capture the whole country.
he said Western nations would continue to provide military support to Ukraine if Russian attacks continued and ‘sometimes that will includes planes and tanks’.
‘We’ve constantly said that Russia should leave Ukraine sovereign territory so that hasn’t changed,’ Mr Wallace told Sky News.
‘I think it’s certainly the case that Putin, having failed in nearly all objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got, sort of… dig in as he did in 2014 [in Crimea], and just be a sort of cancerous growth within Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions.
‘We have to help Ukrainians effectively get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back.’
Mr Wallace said Ukrainian strikes against military targets inside Russia ‘would be legitimate under international law’. But he said Britain had not sent, and was unlikely to send, weapons that could be used for longer-range attacks.
Kremlin spokesman Maria Zakharova warned encouraging attacks on Russian soil would be ‘met with a harsh response’.
Russia has accused Ukraine of several attacks against military installations inside its territory in recent weeks.
‘No chance Russia will give up’