World War 3 on brink as Russia told to light 'demonstrative' nuclear explosion

 A senior Russian official has proposed a "demonstrative" nuclear explosion to intimidate the West amid rising tensions over Ukraine. Dmitry Suslov, a key figure in the Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, suggested that Russia consider a non-combat nuclear explosion.

This proposal comes as tensions with the West escalate over Ukraine's use of Western-supplied arms against Russian targets. Suslov's think tank occasionally influences government policy, and his idea emerged just a day after President Vladimir Putin issued a stern warning to NATO members.

Putin warned that allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons for strikes inside Russia could trigger a global conflict, emphasizing the severe consequences. Ukraine's leadership has argued that it is necessary to strike Russian military targets within Russia using long-range Western missiles to defend itself and counter air, missile, and drone attacks. While this stance has some support among Western nations, the United States has not yet endorsed it.

Russia, which has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, has consistently warned that such actions would be seen as a major escalation. Moscow argues that this could drag NATO and the involved countries into direct conflict, increasing the risk of nuclear war.

Suslov stressed the importance of Russia taking decisive action to deter the West from crossing a critical threshold. He proposed a non-combat nuclear explosion to serve as a stark warning. "To confirm the seriousness of Russia's intentions and to convince our opponents of Moscow's readiness to escalate, it is worth considering a demonstrative (i.e. non-combat) nuclear explosion," Suslov wrote in the business magazine Profil.

He elaborated on the potential impact of such an action: "The political and psychological effect of a nuclear mushroom cloud, which will be shown live on all TV channels around the world, will hopefully remind Western politicians of the one thing that has prevented wars between the great powers since 1945 and that they have now largely lost - fear of nuclear war."

This proposal is the latest in a series of suggestions from Russian security experts and lawmakers advocating for a nuclear test to intimidate the West amid the ongoing Ukraine conflict. These discussions have alarmed Western security experts, raising concerns that Russia might be edging closer to conducting such a test.

The Kremlin has yet to comment on Suslov's suggestion. Officially, Russia's nuclear policy remains unchanged. However, earlier this month, the Kremlin signaled its dissatisfaction with what it perceives as increasingly aggressive Western rhetoric by ordering tactical nuclear weapons drills.

In addition to the nuclear test proposal, Suslov recommended that Russia initiate strategic nuclear exercises and issue stern warnings. He suggested that Moscow should notify any country whose weapons are used by Kyiv to attack Russia that it reserves the right to strike targets in that country globally. He also hinted that Russia might consider using nuclear weapons if such a country retaliated conventionally.