Russia's chief propagandist has issued multiple threats against Great Britain for supporting Ukraine, saying the UK could be targeted with nuclear weapons that would wipe it off the map.
Dmitry Kiselyov, a TV host known as "Vladimir Putin's mouthpiece," made the threats Sunday on Russian state TV during a segment he called "The Sinkable Island," according to The Washington Post.
"Why threaten horizonless Russia with nuclear weapons when you sit on a small island," Kiselyov said, apparently speaking to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. "Just one launch, Boris, and England is gone. Once and for all. Why play with us?"
Kiselyov said Russia could unleash its Poseidon underwater drone that would trigger a radioactive tidal wave and plunge Britain to the depths of the ocean.
The TV station then played a computer simulation of how the warhead would "put England onto the seabed."
"It approaches the target at one-kilometer depth at 200 kilometers per hour," Kiselyov said. "
Kiselyov claimed the warhead is up to 100 megatons. In comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 was 15 kilotons.
"The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo off the coast of Britain will raise a tsunami wave up to 500 meters [1,640 feet] high," Kiselyov said. "Such a water squall is also a carrier of extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn what may be left of them into a radioactive desert. Unfit for anything for years to come."
John Everard, the former UK ambassador to Belarus, doubts that such a weapon even exists. He said the threat is straight propaganda.
"I would urge everybody just to keep calm. By all means, if you feel strongly about it, make your things clear to the Russians. But can we please remember this is just a television mock-up," Everard told RTÉ News. "The Russians do not have this weapon. I'll say that again, they do not have this weapon."
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