Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested a missile that can carry multiple nukes at once. Photo / Getty
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested a missile that can carry multiple nukes at once. Photo / Getty
A Russian television host has warned that Russia could "sink" Britain "once and for all" with a nuclear missile strike or a torpedo that would send a radioactive tsunami.
Dmitry Kiselyov, a state television executive and one of Russia's most notorious propagandists, was the first Russian media figure to threaten nuclear war against the West in 2014, when he claimed Moscow could "turn the United States into radioactive ash".
On his weekly show on Sunday, Kiselyov latched on to Liz Truss' comments last week, when the Foreign Secretary said Britain would "keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole Ukraine".
The Foreign Secretary's remarks, as well as Boris Johnson's statement that Ukrainians have "a right to protect and defend themselves" by striking Russian territory, were used by Russian state media to suggest the West was seeking to attack Russia.
"It was after British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss' 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," 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."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested a missile that can carry multiple nukes at once. Photo / Getty
Kiselyov said the British Isles are "so small that one Sarmat missile [a weapon known as Satan II that can carry multiple nuclear warheads] will be enough to sink it once and for all".
In the next segment, full of computer-generated graphics, the television host showed how a Russian Poseidon torpedo could "plunge Britain into 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.
"Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn whatever might be left of them into a radioactive desert unfit for anything for a long time."
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, on Sunday sought to downplay state television rhetoric, claiming that "Western media misinterpret Russian threats" and that "Russia has never ceased its efforts to reach agreements that guarantee that a nuclear war never develops".
