Putin Allies Worry Nuclear Threat Isn't Working

Vladimir Putin's allies have expressed concern that nuclear threats aren't working anymore because people don't believe Russia would actually use its nuclear weapons.

Guests on the program Rendezvous, hosted by Kremlin propagandists Ivan Trushkin and Andrey Norkin, discussed the country's nuclear weapons and the threat they, and Russia, pose.

An excerpt of the broadcast was shared on YouTube by the Russian Media Monitor watchdog group, and shared on X by Julia Davis.

This latest nuclear rhetoric comes as recent satellite images have shown a probable launch site for a nuclear missile that Vladimir Putin has described as "invincible."

The episode has come out in the midst of Ukraine's advance deep into Russian territory. At the beginning of August, Ukraine launched a surprise operation into Kursk, in what is now the largest incursion into Russian territory since World War II.

The operation has caused a shift in the war, which has been ongoing since Putin ordered the "special military operation" in Ukraine in February of 2022. Up until the Kursk incursion, the war had mostly been fought on Ukrainian territory.

"What scares me is right now, a nuclear status is somehow being neutralized," Norkin said. "For decades, you knew no one would come at you because you have nuclear weapons. Now, your enemies believe you will never use your nuclear weapons because you realize there will be a response, and this means mutual destruction."

"If we didn't acquire an atomic bomb in the mid-20^th century our former allies would have certainly attacked us," Norkin continued.

Andrei Sidorchik, a guest on the show, said: "The bomb was not only a factor of containment it was our way of causing an unacceptable harm to an aggressor. A widespread mistake is to believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki influenced the end of WWII. What influenced the outcome of WWII in the Pacific was the entry of the Soviet Union into the war.

"Today it's not enough to have atomic weapons. You have to clearly convince your opponents that you will certainly use it in a situation where you deem it necessary. No one in the world doubts this about Americans. For some reason, there are doubts about Russia.

"Having a pistol won't stop you from being attacked until you show that you will use it, and use it in the way that stops the attacker."

"The whole point of nuclear weapons is that if someone has them, he won't lose in a war. If someone attacks him, he won't lose. If it comes to it, he will start a nuclear armageddon," added Konstantin Zalessky, another guest on the show.

Guest Gevorg Mirzayan said: "People have lost their fear of nuclear weapons, because they don't remember the horrors of their use."

Trushkin said: "The only thing that stops these crazies is to show them something that blows up. We place our hopes solely on the opposite side meaning our military-political leadership."

The conversation came shortly after news that Russia is to make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, in response to what it sees as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, according to a report from Reuters.

Newsweek has reached out to the Kremlin via email for comment.

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