Putin Ally Threatens to Obliterate NATO Countries With Nuclear Weapons

Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent Russian TV host and noted propagandist for Russian President Vladimir Putin , recently opined that Russia would deploy nuclear weapons "right away" in the event of escalating conflict with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ).

Russian threats of a potential nuclear conflict with the West have escalated over the course of the country's invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February 2022. Numerous Kremlin officials, military leaders, and media propagandists have suggested that nuclear weapons could be deployed against Western nations—such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany—that continue to provide aid to Ukraine, though experts differ on how serious these threats actually are.

Earlier this year, Putin temporarily suspended his country's participation in the joint New START Treaty with the U.S., and in March announced that Moscow would build tactical nuclear weapon storage facilities in Belarus , a country run by close Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko .

On Sunday, a Russian media watchdog account, The Kremlin Yap, took to X, the platform previously known as Twitter , to share a recent clip of Solovyov reacting to recent statements from NATO leadership.

In particular, he mentioned a comment from Peter Nielsen, the commander of NATO forces in Lithuania, who suggested that Kaliningrad would be blockaded in the event of a broader Russia-NATO conflict. Kaliningrad is a key Russian port city on the Baltic Sea, notably situated in the Kaliningrad Oblast, a territory separate from the rest of Russia and enclosed by Lithuania and Poland.

"Does he think that they will encircle us in a blockade, and we will sit and count our bullets?" Solovyov said, as translated by The Kremlin Yap. "Doesn't he realize that we're going to strike with nuclear weapons right away? It is beyond comprehension...We're going to say goodbye to all these countries. 'What happened here? I don't know. You can't make sense out of the embers.'"

He continued: "NATO guys, are you really cretins? Do you honestly think that we, with all our gigantic stockpile of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, will listen to [those opposed to the use of nuclear weapons], who always say, 'No, stop it'? We won't even ask them."

Article 5 of the NATO agreement states that member nations will view an attack on one of them as an attack on all and provide the necessary military aid in response. An attack by Russia against one of these members, therefore, could lead to a much broader international conflict.

Newsweek reached out to NATO officials via email for comment.

Solovyov's comments about deploying nuclear weapons in response to conflict with NATO came shortly after another prominent official, retired Russian colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok , made similar threats against NATO members on the Baltic Sea and Sweden, who is working to join the alliance.

"Nonetheless, this would, in fact, lead to a conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO," Khodaryonok said. "And this conflict can only be nuclear. This is why the inhabitants of Stockholm and Tallinn [Estonia's capital] can be asked, 'Do you need it?' Do you need it? Do you even imagine an underwater nuclear explosion on the roadstead of Tallinn or Stockholm, which will sweep away your city with a wave? Do you even imagine that the entire Baltic Sea could be loaded with our mines?...We might dump so many mines that it would take you 10 years to demine it, if you still had the capacity and means to do so."