Putin Ally Brags About Escalating Russia's Nuclear Threat

An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted that his call to scare the West with nuclear weapon strikes has caused the world to take Moscow more seriously.

Sergei Karaganov, a former presidential adviser and honorary chairman of Moscow's main foreign policy think tank, the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, made waves with an article in June in which he called for nuclear strikes on foreign targets "to bring those who have lost their mind to reason."

His piece titled "A difficult but necessary decision" described how a clash between Moscow and the West would not end with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and that "God handed a weapon of Armageddon to humanity to remind those who had lost the fear of hell that it existed."

But this fear had been lost and "needs to be revived," as he wrote that Russia must "build a strategy of intimidation and deterrence and even use of nuclear weapons." This would reduce the risk of a retaliatory nuclear strike and called for Moscow to "go up the deterrence-escalation ladder quickly," he added.

His comments were widely reported amid repeated rhetoric peddled by Kremlin propagandists about strikes on Kyiv's allies and the specter that has hung over the war that Putin, whom Karaganov is close to, would resort to non-conventional weapons.

In an interview published Wednesday, Karaganov was asked about the reaction that his views had caused, which included a letter from his colleagues at the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy branding his views "the height of irresponsibility."

Karaganov told Russian news outlet the Daily Storm his views had helped strengthen nuclear deterrence, and said that "I am very pleased that I initiated this discussion about nuclear weapons."

"I talk a lot about lowering the nuclear threshold to convince our partners that their policies are reckless and self-destructive," he said.

"If before my articles, the Americans wrote that Russia would never use nuclear weapons, then soon they began to write that they could still use them. And now they write about how to avoid Russia using nuclear weapons and how, God forbid, not to lose in a third world war."

He said that his views had "contributed to strengthening nuclear deterrence by putting this issue on the agenda."

He added that Russia "has taken several steps up the escalation ladder, which have been correctly read and understood by the West." Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.

In an interview with the state news agency Tass published on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the U.S. for the "deteriorating" situation regarding nuclear arms control by creating "unacceptable conditions" such as the New START treaty from which Moscow suspended its participation.

"Regarding prospects for dialogue with the United States on New START and an agreement on something to replace it, we have made it clear that dialogue is impossible without Washington abandoning its anti-Russian stance."

Meanwhile, Putin's ally, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, said this week that a shipment of tactical nuclear weapons to the country had been completed, the Associated Press reported.