Nuclear War Will Happen, Putin Ally Warns

A Russian propagandist with close ties to Vladimir Putin has warned nuclear war is "unavoidable" but that it won't lead to the collapse of humanity by citing previous nuclear blasts.

In a recent debate on state TV, Rossiya-1 host Vladimir Solovyov justified his view by saying that a nuclear strike would not lead to widespread death and destruction if "used against a non-nuclear nation"—perhaps a foreboding hint at the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which has turned into a slow, attritional war with over 300,000 Russian casualties.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment on Friday.

The use of nuclear arms is something the Russian president has previously threatened, sparking outrage from NATO, but has yet to act on given the nuclear arsenal held by members of the alliance, including the United States.

However, the threat of nuclear attacks by Russia is something propagandists have increasingly been mentioning as the military situation in Ukraine grows more dire.

According to a translation by the Daily Beast's Russia Media Monitor unit, published on Thursday, Solovyov told panelists nuclear war was "unavoidable," adding: "It will happen, no doubt about it."

When Vitaly Tretyakov, a Russian journalist and dean of a TV school at Lomonosov State University, expressed a desire to make sure that it does not happen, Solovyov disagreed.

"Nuclear war is the means for something," he said. "It's strange to fight over the means; a nuclear war fulfills a certain goal. Not every nuclear war leads to destruction."

Solovyov added: "We already had a nuclear war. Two nuclear bombs were dropped on the territory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan."

Tretyakov argued this was not a nuclear war in the conventional sense.

Solovyov hit back: "Why not? Nuclear weapons were used. Not every nuclear war leads to destruction.

"If nukes are used against a non-nuclear nation, it won't lead to the nuclear collapse of humanity. Everyone in the military studies the use of tactical nuclear weapons—they know...and they understand how and where [they can be used]."

"Tragically, we observed the aftereffects of radiation on two occasions, at least for our generation: one of them, the territory of the Soviet Union," he goes on to say, seemingly referencing the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, "another one, the territory of Japan. It didn't lead to the global demise of humanity."

In a show of muffled dissent, Tretyakov ends the segment by saying: "I categorically disagree, but that doesn't matter."

The bombs that were dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II had a yield equivalent to 15 and 20 kilotons of TNT, respectively. By comparison, the largest nuclear warhead in America's arsenal is 1.2 megatons—60 times more powerful than the one dropped on Nagasaki—while Russia is known to have bombs with an 800 kiloton yield.

The blast at Chernobyl is estimated to have been equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. As it occurred at ground level and the reactor continues to pour out high doses of radiation, a thousand square mile swathe of modern-day Ukraine remains largely uninhabited.

It is not the first time Solovyov or other Russian propagandists have threatened nuclear war; last week, the pundit said that Russia would deploy nuclear weapons "right away" in the event of a conflict with NATO.

In October, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, said nuclear weapons were the work of "ineffable divine providence," while earlier in the year Russian political commentator Yevgeny Satanovsky warned nuclear war "will definitely happen" with the U.S. over Ukraine.