State channels prepare population for nuclear war – The Moscow Times

The state propaganda reactor, turned on in Russia to the capacity of the Stalinist USSR, becomes nuclear.

Compressing the broadcasting grid into an uninterrupted marathon of military talk shows, federal TV channels have sharply increased their calls for the use of nuclear weapons, explaining to millions of mentally unprotected viewers that a third world is possible and not a win-win.

“Either we lose in Ukraine, or a third world war begins. Personally, I think the scenario of a third world war is more realistic, ”Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia Today, said on the air of Vladimir Solovyov.

Listed on Western sanctions lists, this is not the first time Simonyan has been trusted to be the mouthpiece of the Kremlin’s most belligerent plans. In January 2021, she de facto announced a military scenario in Ukraine, making an appeal: “Mother Russia, take Donbass home!”.

Now Simonyan explains that the failure to demilitarize Ukraine, where the military campaign is obviously stalling, will not force Vladimir Putin to “lay down his paws.” “That in the end, all this will end with a nuclear strike seems to me more likely than such a development of events. To my dismay, she said.

“We are in heaven, and they will simply die,” Simonyan Solovyov added to the speech.

Channel One, meanwhile, goes further, promising that European capitals will turn to dust before anyone comes to their senses. “Berlin – 106 seconds, to Paris – 200 seconds,” – this is the flight time of the Sarmat rocket from Kaliningrad, said Olga Skabeeva in the program “60 minutes”, demonstrating a slide with ballistic trajectories.

Skabeeva’s guest, LDPR deputy Alexei Zhuravlev, suggested aiming for London. “One Sarmat. There were British Isles and there are no British Isles,” he promised.

To warnings that “no one will survive in such a war,” Zhuravlev replied that the “Sarmat” missile “cannot be shot down.” “And we have something to shoot down, we’ll see,” he said.

Sergei Mironov, head of the A Just Russia faction, took the same initiative on Twitter: “We warned about attacks on decision-making centers. But they are accepted not in Kyiv, but in London, Washington, Bonn. Want to hit them?”

The success of propaganda in introducing the population into military hypnosis is colossal: according to the Levada Center, more than 80% believe that things in the country are going “in the right direction.” But while the Russians are rejoicing, the elites are seriously scared: they do not rule out that Putin will decide to use the last, nuclear trump card, sources among the Kremlin insiders told Bloomberg. According to them, the president refuses to listen to warnings, has squeezed an already narrow circle of advisers and is sure that the people are ready to suffer for the sake of his idea of ​​national greatness.

On February 28, Putin put the nuclear triad on special alert, and two months later promised a “lightning strike” against countries that would interfere with his plans in Ukraine. The next day, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, hinted that the target could be Poland, which, according to the intelligence officer, was preparing to send troops into western Ukrainian lands.

Russia plans to limit itself to conventional weapons “at this stage,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reassured on April 19. A week later, he called for treating nuclear war as a real threat: “The danger is serious, it should not be underestimated.”

The United States does not believe that Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries is real, despite Moscow’s recent escalation in rhetoric, a senior US defense official told Reuters. “According to our assessment, there is no threat of the use of nuclear weapons and no threat to NATO territory,” a Pentagon spokesman said. But the US Department of Defense monitors Russia’s nuclear capabilities daily “as far as possible”.