'Nuclear war is coming': Russian TV continues ramping rhetoric

Russian pundits chummy with President Vladimir Putin like to mention the country’s nuclear arsenal at every opportunity, which keeps the specter of nuclear annihilation hanging over Ukraine and NATO.

The latest came from Vladimir Solovyov, a popular pundit known as “Putin’s Voice,” who called the dragging war in Ukraine and a new shipment of American missiles a descent “into bloody pages of world history.”

“Everything is moving in that direction,” he said on his Russia1 show, according to translations by Russian Media Monitor.

“I hope we'll live through this,” he wondered aloud to his panel and audience.

“If everything keeps progressing the way it is, only a couple of mutants in Lake Baikai will survive,” he added, referring the world’s largest freshwater lake in southern Russia.

“The rest will be destroyed in a massive nuclear strike.”

Solyvyov referred to Washington’s decision to send Kyiv advanced long-ranged missile systems that could strike Russian soil as a step closer to nuclear war.

“Because if NATO decides they can place whatever they want on our borders, they'll be sending more and more of American weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine will fire and end up hitting one of our nuclear power plants, and here we go,' he said.

“The process will quickly become uncontrollable. Everyone will get more than they asked for. Bang! And there's nothing left.”

Russian media has been increasingly mentioning the threat of nuclear war as leverage against aid to Ukraine from its allies. After its military successfully tested its “Satan II” intercontinental ballistic missile that can hit targets across the ocean in April, TV hosts openly discussed nuking New York City.

The Kremlin-favored host was allegedly the target of an assassination plot orchestrated by the West. Video of evidence gathered at the suspects’ hideout was widely panned by experts for some bizarre oversights, like three copies of the popular Sims 3 video game, leading many to believe it was a hoax by the Russia’s Federal Security Service.