Over the weekend, a Russian state-run television channel simulated a couple of different ways Russia could destroy the United Kingdom with its nuclear weapons, including by using a nuclear torpedo to create a radioactive tidal wave that would sink the island.
On Sunday, Russian state television host Dmitry Kiselyov aired a segment on the state-run Russia 1 television channel in which he described a variety of outcomes from Russian nuclear strikes. Kiselyov aired the segment in response to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said Ukrainians have “a right to protect and defend themselves” by striking inside Russian territory.
“And what’s going to happen after Boris Johnson’s words about a retaliatory strike?” Kiselyov said. “One launch, Boris, and there will be no Britain. Once and for all.”
Kiselyov said a single one of Russia’s new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles can carry enough nuclear firepower to “sink [Britain] once and for all.”
Russia recently completed a test of the Sarmat ICBM. The missile is believed to be able to carry multiple warheads, including up to 10 large nuclear warheads, or 16 smaller ones, or a combination of warheads and countermeasures, or hypersonic boost-glide vehicles. Russian missile forces are reportedly set to begin receiving the new Sarmat missiles — which is nicknamed “Satan II” — by fall of this year.
“Another option is to plunge Britain into the depths of the sea using Russia’s unmanned underwater vehicle ‘Poseidon,'” Kiselyov said.
Russia has been developing a nuclear-capable underwater vehicle known as Poseidon, Kanyon or Status 6. The vehicle performs like a torpedo and is able to travel through the water to detonate its nuclear warhead along an enemy shoreline.
Kiselyov said “there is no way to stop this underwater drone,” which he said can carry a warhead with an up to 100 megaton nuclear yield.
“The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo close to Britain’s coast will cause a gigantic wave tsunami wave up to 500 meters (1,640 feet) high,” Kiselyov said. “This wave also carries extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn whatever might be left of them into a radioactive desert unfit for anything for a long time.”
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the risk of World War III and nuclear conflict was “very significant.” In a Sunday interview with Italy’s Mediaset new channel, Lavrov said western media has distorted his warnings about nuclear conflict.
“I was asked about the threats that are now accumulating, how real the third world war is,” Lavrov said. “I answered literally the following: Russia has never stopped efforts to reach agreements that will guarantee the non-unleashing of a nuclear war.
