World War Three has already started, according to Russia 's State TV following the sinking of the Moskva.
The chilling statement from a leading television presenter came as it became clear Moscow has lost another high-flying GRU military intelligence agent in Ukraine, the latest blow to the Kremlin’s most elite spy service.
Olga Skabeyeva told Rossiya 1 channel viewers that "what it's escalated into can safely be called World War Three" and insisted "that's entirely for sure."
The propagandist presenter added: “Now we're definitely fighting against Nato infrastructure, if not Nato itself. We need to recognise that.”
It comes after the sinking of the Russian ship which sent the Kremlin's main propaganda mouthpiece into meltdown last night.
Officials have not acknowledged Ukraine’s claims that it struck the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet with cruise missiles.
The operation would signify one of Kyiv’s biggest military successes since the invasion began.
Captain Alexey Bogomolov, of the 25th separate regiment of GRU special forces (Stavropol), was killed in action in the conflict, it was revealed on Friday.
Military commentator Dmitry Drozdenko said on separate state-run Channel 1: “In actual fact a full-scale multi-level war is underway with the collective West. And the West has long been preparing for the war."
Anchor Olesya Loseva, host of Vremya Pokazhet, told viewers that the West was now supplying "zillions of weapons” to Ukraine.
She argued that Ukraine was doing the West’s bidding by carrying out "yet more provocations, bloody, horrible, completely unthinkable.”
These will “force people to shudder once again and say that Russia Is a country which is unworthy of even being on the world map and that all Russians should simply be wiped off the face of the earth”.
Skabeyeva claimed Ukrainians were delighted to see Russian troops in their country.
The blamed the Ukrainians for “genocide, not the Russians, she claimed.
“For some reason ordinary Ukrainians themselves aren't noticing any genocide. In Kharkiv region they're welcoming our soldiers like real liberators," she said.
“People are coming out with Russian tricolours onto the streets where our military kit is.
“The people of Kharkiv are accusing not the Russian army of genocide, but the Ukrainian armed forces.”
But the death of GRU agent Bogomolov, whose funeral will be held tomorrow in Tambov region, highlights the crippling blows suffered by the elite spy service.
The West believes that the service was entrusted by Putin to seek to poison Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with novichok.
It follows the death of 31-year-old GRU agent Captain Alexey Glushchak in mid March.
Another to perish was Senior Lieutenant Anton Volkov, from the Vladimir region.
In another incident, Captain Konstantin Druzhkov, 33, who used Stalin’s real surname Dzhugashvili as his pseudonym was killed last month.
He died alongside GRU operatives Islam Abduragimov, 19, and Shamil Aselderov, age not specified.
Separately, a video that emerged last week showed multiple graves of recently killed GRU military intelligence special forces officers.
They were from the 10th Separate Order of Zhukov Special Purpose Brigade.
The GRU is seen as Russia's most secretive and - until recently - most effective service.
Britain says a GRU hit squad was behind the poisoning with Novichok of Skripal - who had defected to Britain - and his daughter Yulia in 2018.
In the Cold War, a GRU agent under diplomatic cover in London, Captain Yevgeny Ivanov triggered the fall of a Tory government after he seduced Christine Keeler, the lover of British war minister John Profumo.
