Putin Ally Suggests Nuclear Explosion Over Russia

Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan suggested that Russia should display its nuclear capabilities with an atomic test above its own territory.

In a video address on her Telegram channel, shared on the X (formerly Twitter) account of Russia watcher Julia Davis, the RT editor-in-chief expressed her feelings about the progress of the war in Ukraine started by her ally, Vladimir Putin.

Simonyan started the eight-minute address by describing how Russia had "celebrated the anniversary of the return of our Russian lands to us."

On September 30, Russian authorities marked one year since Moscow claimed to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine, none of which Russia fully controls.

"I am perfectly happy to live at a time when these events are taking place and historical justice is being restored," she said, as she described how Ukrainians "are the same as you and me" and had spent "30 years in hell," referring to the period since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

But amid her apparent joy, at the same time she said she felt "bitterness and regret" because the war started by Russia, which has killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, was turning out to be "so long and so hard."

While happy that Russia had seized Kherson, she lamented how it had "returned to the enemy, to the wicked stepmother," when Ukraine eventually recaptured the city.

She said that Russian people are "praying, fighting and worrying" for Ukrainian areas like Kherson to return to Russia.

"I can't promise you this, but if it does not, you will know no peace and neither will we," she said. "We'll be fighting for this peace, whatever it takes."

She reiterated the Kremlin talking point that the war was one in which the West was fighting Russia and "trying to strangle us with Ukraine's hands."

Reflecting on how it will not be done as "easily and painlessly" as the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, which Kyiv is seeking to recapture, Simonyan said that "a nuclear ultimatum is becoming inevitable" because "they will not back down until they feel a lot of pain."

She cited the call by the late Russian right-wing populist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in April 2022, "that we strike Washington."

But she suggested that hitting one of Ukraine's allies with a missile— a common refrain on the Russian state TV programs she appears on, would not be necessary.

She said that Russia could "conduct a thermonuclear explosion hundreds of kilometers above our own territory somewhere in Siberia," and that would not impact those on the ground.

Rather than describing the intention of such a move as one to scare the West, she said its main effect would be to "destroy all radio electronics" and affect satellites, cameras and phones. Simonyan then talked about how life could revert to the time of 1993 and how "glad" she would be to live in a gadget-free world.

"The option is out there and it is the most humane one," she concluded, leading Davis to post how Simonyan had "predicted a grim future" because she thinks "the war against Ukraine might go on for ages and suggested blowing up a nuke over Siberia to scare the West."