Nuclear war 'must never be unleashed', says Russian embassy despite TV report on impact of attack on Ireland

Discussion on Russian state television of the impact a Russian nuclear device would have if detonated off the coast of Donegal. Video via Twitter

Russia believes there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it "must never be unleashed", its embassy in Dublin has insisted — despite state television graphically describing how one of its nuclear torpedoes could wipe out Ireland and Britain.

The report details how a torpedo with an explosive capacity of 100 megatonnes, which explodes 300kms north-west of Donegal would create a 500m high tidal wave that would plunge the countries "into the depths of the sea".

“Such a barrage also carries extreme doses of radiation," it adds. "Having passed over the British Isles it will turn whatever might be left of them into a radioactive desert, unfit for anything for a long time.”

When the video content was put to the Russian Embassy in Dublin, it said the views expressed in the television show were those of its editors.

"The official position of Russia has always been that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and that it must never be unleashed, as once again was reaffirmed in the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races, published on January 3, 2022,” it added.

However, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, professor of politics at DCU, said there have been several references made on Russian state television about how it would be easy or even desirable to launch nuclear strikes on western countries, including the UK.

“These are sometimes made casually and sometimes forcefully,” he said. “There is an assumption that either western countries would be unable to respond or an acknowledgement that it would be the end for everyone, but as one TV presenter said a few days after the war began: ‘Why do we need a world if Russia is not in it?

While the statement of TV presenters and panellists does not enjoy the status of an official government statement the fact that they are made on state-controlled television means they are considered within the realm of Kremlin-approved discourse.”

Send ambassador home

Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher said the Russian ambassador to Ireland Yury Filatov should be called in to meet the Government, who should then put “a note in his pocket” and he should be “sent home”.

Mr Kelleher told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne that the television report should be taken seriously. He said the Irish Government should express concern about the tone of a report that indicated Russia had the capability to launch a nuclear warhead that could obliterate “the British Isles”, with Ireland included in graphics showing the outcome.

“The ambassador should be left in no doubt about our displeasure” he added.

Russia was using “bully boy tactics” in a state-sponsored television programme when they advocated the nuclear destruction of two islands off the coast of Europe. The tone of the programme spoke volumes about the attitude of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Russian generals.

“I don’t think the [Irish] Government can sit on its hands when a programme on Russian TV is advocating the destruction of Ireland.” Nuclear fallout “knows no borders”, he warned. This type of aggressive commentary should not go unchallenged.