Russian television is now openly talking about attacking Ukraine with nuclear weapons, and similar threats come almost daily from the country's political and military leadership.
Television presenter Sergey Mardan shared his thoughts on a survey, according to which a third of Russians would not oppose a nuclear strike against Ukraine, Newsweek reported.
Putin said he did not need nuclear weapons to achieve his goals in Ukraine, which he invaded in February 2022, but also warned that Kiev's strikes against Russia with longer-range weapons, supplied by the US and other Western countries, could lead to nuclear escalation.
„Propagandist Mardan disagrees with Russian citizens who support a nuclear strike on Ukraine – not for humanitarian reasons, but because of his genocidal, imperial belief that Ukraine does not exist and is part of Russia,” writes Julia Davis of the Russian Media Monitor.
Which city to attack – Kharkiv, Kyiv...? Mardan asked this rhetorical question on air, arguing that these cities are actually Russian and it would be delirious for the Russian army to attack Yaroslavl, for example, just because there are civil “rebellions” there.
Russia often resorts to nuclear rhetoric for one simple reason: it wants to get Western countries to stop military aid to Ukraine.