Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, delivered a sermon on the occasion of the Orthodox Epiphany in Moscow this week. He spoke to those who want to “defeat Russia”, using the occasion to threaten the West: “We pray that the Lord will warn these madmen and help them understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world. .”
Russia’s top propagandists, from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov, have been spreading the same not-so-subtle nuclear threat far and wide — yet Putin’s spokespeople now worry that the boy-who-cried-wolf routine is no longer taken seriously by their target audience in the West. The dilemma manifested itself during a live broadcast of “An Evening with Vladimir Solovyov.” After a number of talking heads took turns repeating that Russia’s defeat would mean the end of the world, their propaganda was suddenly blown up by Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Middle East Institute.
“First of all, our main enemy is certainly the United States. What did the US react to? They respond to two things: the threat of physical destruction and the liquidation of a certain number of military personnel. What we know based on the wars in Vietnam and Korea is that several tens of thousands of American servicemen killed will cause public opinion in the US to be severely strained. I will repeat: not a few thousand, as in Afghanistan or Iraq, but a certain number of tens of thousands. Who will eliminate them, where they will eliminate them, and in what way is completely irrelevant, but this is one of the goals if we want to influence the American leadership. We have absolutely nothing to lose.”
The head of RT, Margarita Simonyan, described the mood in the country: “In every home, in every kitchen and living room, in every yard, all the conversations are only about what will happen next, how everything will end… I don’t see every possible move of events, except for the following: first, they will not stop. I’m not talking about Ukraine or Zelensky [She is talking about the West]… They’re going to keep raising the stakes to the point where it’s going to hurt us. The question will be about the safety of the territory of the Russian Federation, and not only the newly added territories. I have no doubt that they will do everything possible to make us concerned about the safety of Moscow, or at least think seriously about it… It will certainly happen!’
Simonyan concluded: “This can only end with an immediate threat that has been expressed and presented, a threat of nuclear confrontation.” She argued that the West’s failure to agree to a list of demands presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2021 ., has led to the invasion of Ukraine. Simonian said that after Putin’s ultimatum was announced, she told her friends: “Boys, there will be a big war for sure. By the end of winter, something very big is going to happen!’
She argued that this time the West’s refusal to abandon its support for Ukraine would have even greater consequences: “It is true that no one will win in a nuclear war, but who needs the world if Russia is not in her? This was said out loud, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin said it!” The head of RT concluded: “I see no other way out… This will be a wrecking ball! It will be all-in! It will be like two airplanes flying head on. Someone is going to have to back down, and something tells me it won’t be us.”
Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Russian State Duma’s Defense Committee, followed Simonyan’s diatribe by boasting about the Motherland’s nuclear power and absurdly claiming that Russia defeated the West in World War II, causing NATO to “fear World War II war”. Resorting to grotesque threats, Kartapolov addressed the West with a line from an old Soviet film: “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt when we cut your throat. We will cut but once and you are in heaven… Our victory will be wherever the Russian soldier stops – and wherever he stops, from there he will never come out.
Not everyone in the studio bought into the idea that only bringing the planet to the brink of nuclear disaster would resolve Russia’s quagmire in Ukraine. Political scientist Sergey Mikheev took exception to Simonyan’s scenario of direct confrontation, arguing that the art of diplomacy should not be reduced to this deplorable state. He advocated asymmetric measures to achieve Russia’s goals. Solovyov stepped in to soften the blow, telling Mikheev: “Sergey Alexandrovich, we are just irresponsible journalists. We can afford to do it.” Mikheev replied under his breath: “We’re not even journalists.”
Americanist Dmitry Drobnitsky also ridiculed Simonyan’s idea of a “face-to-face” confrontation accompanied by nuclear threats, arguing that this strategy would alienate current Russian sympathizers such as India or China.
Even Satanovsky dismissed the simplistic thinking behind Simonyan’s account, telling her: “If the bet is that we’re going to cease to exist, we can’t limit ourselves to thinking that they read what the president said and believed him — no, Margarita, you don’t believe it.” He claims that his idea of killing thousands of American soldiers to avoid the destruction of all of America is much more feasible. Not a single expert at the studio objected to Satanovsky’s ominous proposal. Drobnicki had only one exception: “In our country, we embraced one American we wouldn’t want to kill: that would be Tucker Carlson.”
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