On Monday, Margarita Simonyan suggested carrying out a thermonuclear explosion over Siberia to “send a signal” to the West. The director of the Russian broadcaster ‘RT’ suggested that this would render Western satellites useless. But such an atmospheric explosion would have catastrophic consequences for everyone… including Russia.
What if Russia bombed… Russia? And not with just any weapon, since the proposal suggests using a thermonuclear bomb over Siberia. It was proposed on Monday, October 2, by Margarita Simonyan, the queen of Russian propaganda and director of the ‘RT’ news channel. Since then, the idea has provoked mixed reactions from Moscow to Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city.
This controversial statement comes at a time when the Ukrainian counteroffensive is in full swing. Margarita Simonyan considered it necessary to send a “strong signal to the West”, accused by Moscow of being the real driving force of the Ukrainian war effort. For this propagandist, the time had come to consider “detonating a nuclear bomb on our own territory, somewhere above Siberia where there is no one.”
Alone against everyone?
In Russia, these comments were not at all convincing. Siberian politicians asked the head of ‘RT’ to apologize “to all the people of Siberia.” More than 33 million people live in this immense province of 13 million square kilometers, 25 times the area of France.
“There is nothing positive about a thermonuclear explosion, and the effects would be felt for generations,” warned Anatoly Lokot, mayor of Novosibirsk, who trained as a physicist. Even the Kremlin distanced itself from Margarita Simonyan, stressing that Russia “remains bound by the international moratorium.” [firmada en 1996] on nuclear testing.
Only Ramzan Kadyrov, the controversial Chechen leader, came to Margarita Simonyan’s rescue. “She is not stupid and she has not proposed detonating a thermonuclear bomb on national territory,” he said. The proposal from the head of ‘RT’ is an explosion at altitude, that is, in the atmosphere or beyond.
Is this better? Not necessarily. First of all, “Russia would break a real taboo, since atmospheric tests have not been carried out since 1962,” says Jean-Marie Collin, President of Ican France (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).
Second, just because the explosion occurs high above our heads does not mean that there is no radioactive fallout, especially with a thermonuclear bomb. “We’re talking about an H-bomb.” [de hidrógeno]”that is, a nuclear fusion bomb that produces an incredibly powerful explosion,” says Paul Dorfman, a nuclear specialist at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex.
Shooting Yourself in the Foot with an H-Bomb
“Radioactive fallout is very likely to have negative effects on human health and the environment. Not to mention the fact that a radioactive cloud travels and is likely to contaminate other countries,” says Jean-Marie Collin.
The severity of the impact depends on the altitude at which the explosion was triggered. “If it remains in the troposphere – that is, less than 12 km from the ground – environmental contamination will be real. If the explosion takes place in the stratosphere – between 12 and 50 km above the ground – the radiation will take longer to reach the Earth and the effects will be weaker,” explains Paul Dorfman. Above these altitudes, the effects could be null for the terrestrial population. But also in this case, the estimates remain very theoretical, since no H-bomb tests have been carried out since the 1960s.
However, it has been established that explosions of this type are perfectly capable of disabling electrical devices and satellites. But “we cannot control these explosions and decide that they only affect Western satellites, for example,” explains Jean-Marie Collin. In this sense, Margarita Simonyan is actually proposing that Moscow “shoot itself in the foot,” says Paul Dorfman.
And not just a little. The outbreak of these explosions would have a global effect. In 2011, American scientists estimated that an H-bomb detonated at altitude would be enough “to destroy more than 90% of the world’s civilian satellites. Only military satellites with reinforced armor could withstand it.” At that time, these estimates were based on the explosion of a bomb weighing just 10 kilotons. Today, Russian strategic nuclear weapons correspond to the modern standard, “that is, bombs of at least 500 kilotons,” notes the Washington Post in an article dedicated to the Russian arsenal.
The proposal of the head of ‘RT’ “would probably return us to the world before the 60s in terms of media,” says Paul Dorfman. “It would be a change of era that could have catastrophic consequences throughout the world, both in the West and in Russia,” adds Jean-Marie Collin. The disappearance of almost all satellites would mean the end of critical systems in today’s world, such as GPS.
Scare the West
In other words, “you’d have to be crazy to even propose an idea like that,” says Paul Dorfman. Or very politically cynical. “Until his death in 2022, it was the ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky who spent his time threatening to detonate nuclear bombs almost everywhere, including on Russian soil. It seems that Margarita Simonyan has taken over,” says Jeff Hawn, a specialist in Russia and external advisor to the New Lines Institute, an American geopolitical research center.
The idea is to “constantly remind the world that Russia has the means to easily cause enormous damage thanks to its nuclear arsenal,” he adds. At the same time, it is also a way to pander to the nationalist sentiments of the ‘RT’ audience, suggesting that Russia is willing to do anything to defend itself.
Moscow also hopes to scare people with this, at least apocalyptic, idea. Margarita Simonyan is not just anyone. The fact that such an influential figure in Russian politics could make a suggestion in Washington with catastrophic consequences for Moscow is intended to intimidate. The head of ‘RT’ hopes that some decision-makers, especially in the United States, will think that, after all, it might be better not to put too much pressure on the Russians. “This could be a way to try to strengthen the field of those in the United States who are campaigning to limit support for Ukraine,” concludes Jeff Hawn.
*Article adapted from its original in French
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