Russian State TV Discusses Nuclear Attack on Ukraine

A Russian propagandist has discussed nuclear strikes on Ukraine in a state television broadcast amid the country's ongoing war on its western neighbor.

Sergey Mardan, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, shared his thoughts on a poll that found a third of Russians would not oppose a nuclear strike on Ukraine.

It comes as Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov, has again said that the war in Ukraine could prompt Moscow to amend its nuclear doctrine, which currently calls for the use of atomic weapons only if it perceives a threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Putin has said he does not need nuclear weapons to achieve his goals in Ukraine, which he invaded in February 2022, but also warned that Kyiv's strikes on Russia with longer-range weapons supplied by the U.S. and other Western nations could lead to a nuclear escalation.

A clip of Mardan's remarks was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Julia Davis, the founder of the Russia Media Monitor watchdog, on Saturday.

Mardan "weighed in on a poll that found that one-third of Russians would be fine with nuking Ukraine," Davis wrote in the post. "Mardan disagrees with them—not for humanitarian reasons, but due to his genocidal, imperial belief that Ukraine does not exist and is part of Russia."

In the clip, Mardan said that the number of Russians who wouldn't oppose a nuclear strike is "incredibly high" but that many also fear nuclear war.

"For the sake of fairness, it should be said that en masse Russian people haven't lost their sanity and I believe they won't lose it," Mardan said, according to the Russian Media Monitor's translation.

"People think before giving their answer. People think about the meaning of a question they are being asked. Of course, there is also a built-up collective inoculation, the fear of nuclear war in any shape or form."

He said he understood the reasons so many support a nuclear strike.

"I understand the reasoning of these people very well, including those on the internet, and in their comments they send me, where they say, 'Yes of course, why should we sacrifice our guys, when we can simply blow up a nuclear bomb?'" Mardan said.

"But then a question arises: whom should we nuke, specifically? Where should we carry out a massive nuclear strike?"

He went on to argue against bombing Ukraine because it "is a part of Russia," and questioned whether people would support nuclear strikes on Russian cities if violence erupted in those places.

"The territory of Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv Chernihiv, all of it is Russia," he said.

"In a fit of delirium, would you propose that if tomorrow there is unrest, if extremists do something crazy in Yaroslavl or Kostroma, you wouldn't propose using tactical nukes against Yaroslavl or Kostroma, right? That's right! But what about this? This is different. No, my dears, this is not different."