A former adviser to Vladimir Putin has claimed British cities could be nuclear targets for the Russian president and blamed the West for the Ukraine war after he made a bizarre rant on British radio.
Sergey Markov made a series of unsubstantiated claims — including that Ukrainian soldiers were being “served as slaves” by Western countries — before yelling into phone lines in an interview.
He had threatened the West with nuclear war before he was asked any questions on the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday morning.
“Good morning,” the host said, to which the former Putin adviser responded: “Good morning. Well, it’s not good morning…for everyone.”
He continued: “To the West, to you, the British audience, I would say that Vladimir Putin told us that he would be ready to use nuclear weapons against Western countries, including the United Kingdom.
Mr. Markov said “your city will be the target…” before being interrupted.
Putin warned in a national address on Wednesday that he would be prepared to use weapons of mass destruction to “protect” his country.
“When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will use all means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people,” the Russian president said.
The ex-Putin adviser lashes out at nuclear war within seconds of giving BBC Radio 4 interview
(Sky News/Twitter)
Markov was asked if he believed that the Russian leader had explicitly threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and to start a full-scale nuclear war that would kill everyone.
He replied “not everyone”, but added that “it could kill a lot of people in Western countries”.
The former Putin adviser said: “I would say that everyone in the world…is thinking about nuclear war. This nuclear war could be the result of US President Joe Biden and British Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Caused by crazy behavior.”
Vladimir Putin warns he will prepare to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia
(Russian Presidential Press Agency)
He claimed Russia “doesn’t want everyone in the world to die in a nuclear war” but it wants a solution to the war in Ukraine, which he claimed the West was fighting “with Ukrainian soldiers as slaves”.
After claiming Russia wanted peace, Mr Markov was challenged by the BBC presenter, saying: “You haven’t been talking about peace, have you? You’ve just threatened us all with total destruction by launching nuclear missiles into London, You said, now you talk about peace.”
Mr Markov replied: “If the UK continues to invade Russia, if Prime Minister Liztrath still has plans to destroy Russia, the people of London should understand that the threat comes from the aggressor Liztrath.”
He ended the interview by yelling at the host, claiming that Russia had not invaded Ukraine and blaming the West for the war.
Foreign Minister, he’s the next guest today During the show, someone asked her what she thought of the interview.
“Putin has more lies. Completely rewrites history. A little bit of a fight,” Gillian Keegan said. “And it is very unhelpful to talk about nuclear war, and we would urge calm.”
Russia invaded Ukraine seven months ago
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“This is a serious threat, but it has been created before,” she added.
Mr Markov has previously made baseless claims to the British media about the war in Ukraine, telling Sky News that Voladimir Zelensky was a “puppet” of the US and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to free it from “neo-Nazis”. “.
He also said Talk TV host Jeremy Kyle “may have been misled” when asked about Putin’s responsibility for the death in Ukraine.
