Don’t Take Domestic Russian Pundits Seriously: Russia Isn’t Preparing To Nuke Poland

Their words are purely their own and not representative of Russian policy, but that country’s foes and even friends alike have the habit of implying otherwise, with the former doing so maliciously while the latter does so innocently.

Russian military expert Konstantin Sivkov made headlines across the world after talking about Russia nuking Poland during his appearance on a top domestic talk show. Western media has the habit of dishonestly implying that such pundits’ words are scripted by the government, but the reality is that they’re always ad-libbed just like any other guest’s on major programs in every country. Having clarified that, what he said about Poland is indeed scandalous, and it went as follows:

“Let's look at Poland. This is the most realistic candidate which could become a small theatre of nuclear war. Are there 20 big cities there? I don't think so. If we allocate two nuclear missiles to each city, that's only 30-40 missiles. This is just a salvo from one Iskander division. In 10 to 15 minutes, both the state of Poland and the Polish people disappear. The Polish language will also disappear. Europeans must understand this. I urge Europeans to think about what they are doing.”

Sivkov didn’t describe the scenario in which Russia would use strategic nuclear weapons against only Poland, and he also just as unrealistically assumed that the US wouldn’t nuke Russia in response to the destruction of its NATO ally, both of which reflect poorly on his credentials as a military expert. No explanation was given either for why Russia would nuke big cities full of civilians instead of military sites, and his words about Poland, its people, and even their language disappearing are problematic.

The point that he was apparently trying to make in a cartoonishly ultra-nationalist way, the style of which is commonplace on top Russian talk shows, is that Poland should reconsider its role in the Ukrainian Conflict since it could be the first to be destroyed if World War III eventually breaks out. Even so, the words that he used to convey this were interpreted abroad as warmongering and even as an intent to genocide the Polish people due to what he said about them, their state, and language disappearing.

As was clarified above, however, his words are purely his own and not representative of Russian policy. Nevertheless, that country’s foes and even friends alike have the habit of implying otherwise, with the former doing so maliciously while the latter does so innocently. To explain, “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” still tend to indulge in wishful thinking despite President Putin advising his foreign intelligence service against this in summer 2022, which in this context takes the form of believing domestic Russian pundits.

These figures’ cartoonishly ultra-nationalist style is purely for internal consumption and predicated on the (arguably misguided) assumption that it’s what average Russians need to hear in order to continue supporting their government’s foreign and military policies. Pundits sometimes seem to compete with one another to see who can say the most outlandish things, which their media bosses tacitly approve of (at least for ratings’ sake) otherwise they’d have intervened to put an end to these antics long ago.

If someone took their words literally all the time, then they’d be under the false assumption that Russia is about to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the West, and not out of self-defense as a last resort but out of the supposedly selfless desire to free the world from Western hegemony. Julia Davis, who was banned from entering Russia in early 2022 due to her hostile activities, regularly documents this on her YouTube channel and her work is often republished by Western media and influencers.

As regards the abovementioned narrative, it’s completely false as agreed upon by President Putin and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, two people who rarely see eye-to-eye on anything. The first called such claims “bullshit” during his meeting with the press last week while the second said around the same time that it’s unrealistic to imagine that Russia would attack “the strongest alliance, military power in the world.”  Words like Sivkov’s and his peers’, however, lend false credence to this narrative.

The Western media then dishonestly implies that they’re supposedly representative of Russian policy, the perception of which is exploited to justify more aggressive moves against Russia. Even more false credence is lent to this debunked narrative when top Alt-Media influencers like Pepe Escobar, who now has a yearly tradition of meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and just had a private dinner with his spokeswoman Maria Zakharova last week, post about a planned Russian first strike against the US.

This self-inflicted damage to Russia’s reputation by “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” like Pepe and patriotic Russians like Sivkov could swiftly be put to an end if the government realizes how counterproductive their cartoonishly ultra-nationalist messaging is and signals to its supporters to stop it. This warmongering rhetoric discredits President Putin’s expressed intent to resume negotiations aimed at ending the Ukrainian Conflict and then responsibly managing Russian-NATO tensions afterwards.