Vladimir Putin’s rehearsed obliterating both Britain and the US in his latest round of nuclear missile tests yesterday, a top Russian military expert claimed.
The Kremlin dictator, 70, was seen like a Bond villain overseeing his rehearsal for “massive nuclear strikes” by land, sea and air.
The drills were specifically aimed at wiping Britain and the United States off the face of the earth in retaliatory strikes if Russia was hit by nuclear attacks, said Colonel Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s National Defence magazine.
Britain would be swallowed up by the Atlantic Ocean, while in place of the US would be a sea strait named after Comrade Stalin, he said.
He told Russian state TV this was the purpose of the “strategic training exercise” known as Thunder overseen by the Kremlin supremo amid high east-west tension during the Ukraine war unleashed by Putin.
“The Russian Minister of Defence [Sergei Shoigu] made this clear,” said Korotchenko, frequently used as a hardline military pundit on propaganda TV shows.
The tests were practicing “a massive nuclear missile strike in response to a first nuclear attack against Russia,” he said.
“Who could launch a first nuclear strike on Russia?
“The US and the UK.”
He doubted French president Emmanuel Macron would attack Russia with nuclear weapons.
“I don't know if Macron is someone who would join this adventure and has been factored into this scenario.
“I am not judging, but it is clear that this [the Russian drill] was a deep retaliation scenario.”
“In this regard it is very important that we have shown who our main enemies are and what awaits them,” he said.
“There is no compromise. The signal has been sent [to the US and UK].”
Propagandist TV anchor Olga ‘Putin’s Iron Doll’ Skabeyeva asked Korotchenko: “So we have practiced today destroying the United States and once-great Britain, right?”
He replied: “Absolutely right and… it all took place, I emphasise, after a first strike against us.”
Propagandist TV anchor and MP Yevgeny Popov said this was “not insignificant”.
“We would have a sea strait named after Comrade Stalin in place of the United States in North America, and the Atlantic Ocean in place of Great Britain…”
He said: “This [should make them] sober up and clear their minds.
"Once again, this is not nuclear blackmail, no, this is what we would really do [if] we get hit.”