The First Russian Channel showed a simulation of the destruction that nuclear weapons could wreak on European cities. Moscow reiterates that it does not want nuclear war, but Russian rhetoric has now portrayed this in Ukraine as a struggle in the ongoing war between Russia and the West
Since the conflict began, Russian television has played a crucial role in defining what Russians should know about the ongoing war in Ukraine. And from the start she was able to deny the reality – for example no one empowered to define what a war is going on – to overturn the allegations (defines fake news massacres like Bucha’s) , finding difficult ways to tell the facts arriving from the field (as in the case of those demanding revenge for the sinking of the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva, without ever having realized that the cruiser had been hit by a Ukrainian missile was).
But now state television is expanding its role – and Western analysts see a growing danger in the resulting war narrative.
A frightening simulation of how a Russian nuclear attack on some European capitals – London, Berlin, Paris – could develop, has been running on Russian television for the past few hours. According to some guests of one of the main Russian talk shows, 60 Minutes, hosted by Channel One, these cities would be pulverized within 200 seconds after the missiles were launched from the Kaliningrad base.
Aleksey Zhuravlyov, president of the nationalist Rodina party, said that one Sarmat missile would be enough and the British Isles would cease to exist. I speak seriously, he stressed, while another guest explained that Britain also has nuclear weapons and that no one would survive this war.
That Zhuravlyov’s failure was not unexpected is shown by the fact that at the time the television was showing a graph showing the hypothetical trajectory of missiles that could apparently be launched from Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, Berlin (106 seconds for impact), Paris (200 seconds) and London (202 seconds).
The phrases spoken on Channel One come as Russia continues to argue it has no intention of seeking a nuclear confrontation with the West.
It was up to Vladimir Putin, three days after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, to put the nuclear deterrent system on alert.
During a meeting with Defense Minister Shoigu in the Kremlin, Putin said that Western countries are not only imposing hostile sanctions on us, but that leaders of major NATO countries are making aggressive demands against Russia. That’s why I’m ordering the deterrence system to be placed on alert. The aftermath, he said, will be like never before in history.
Last week, Putin said Moscow’s hypersonic missiles have the ability to outperform any defense system in the world.
What alarmed Western analysts, more than the hypothesis of a use of nuclear weapons on European capital, is that Russian television has been deluged with statements calling for an escalation – depicting it as necessary to win an existential challenge. The Vice-President of the Duma called it a metaphysical battle between the forces of evil and those of good, a holy war that we must win.
In this sense, as written here by Paolo Valentino, the triumph of the maximalist wing in the Kremlin has already translated into extremely clear television messages. Total conflict, then, regardless of military, political and economic costs: We are at war against the whole world, said General Minnikaev, while the head of Russian diplomacy – Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – declared that NATO was fighting against a proxy war against Russia . Putin himself said that the West and NATO are trying to destroy Russia from within.
“Our submarines are capable of launching more than 50 nuclear missiles, which would guarantee the destruction of the United States and NATO,” Dmitry Kiselyov said at the opening of his program on Sunday, March 28. What would a world be without Russia?
April 30, 2022 (Change April 30, 2022 | 17:23)
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