Russian State TV Guest Calls for Nuclear Strike on U.K.: 'Raise the Stakes'

The threat of a nuclear strike on British territory has been again raised as a talking point on a Russian state television program.

Tigran Keosayan made the comments during an edition of the program One's Truth (Svaya Pravda) on the NTV channel during a discussion about Moscow's claim that the U.K. had coordinated attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipes between Russia and Germany.

The anchor, Roman Babayan, started last Friday's show by introducing a clip in which the head of Russia's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, referred to a text former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss allegedly sent to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the pipes were hit on September 26 that said "it's done."

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dot Com made the claim in a tweet, which spurred Keosayan, the husband of Kremlin propagandist and head of the RT channel Margarita Simonyan, to call for a response in kind.

"They are raising the stakes because we are not raising the stakes," Keosayan said. "If something of theirs blew up in response to the Nord Stream explosion, they would not start to love us more."

Keosayan said this should be "a signal for the decision makers" in Moscow, but that the feeling in Russia that it was in a "holy war" with the West posed the risk of "not telling more to the people."

"However, if we've been punished; if our press, our president and our government say, 'the English did it,'" he said, the average Russian citizen would demand a "retaliatory response."

"A nuclear nation, especially one like Russia with a (nuclear) triad cannot lose...otherwise the whole world will lose," he said.

He referred to the possibility that Russian nuclear-capable missiles, such as the Kinzhal or Kalibr, might fly "off course and the island of Jersey is gone."

Keosayan described the British crown dependency off the coast of France—which is not part of the United Kingdom although the British monarch is the head of state—as "where there are fewer people but more goats."

The exchange on NTV was tweeted by journalist and Russia watcher Julia Davis, who wrote how Keosayan was "a propagandist in his own right, albeit not nearly as popular as his wife" who argued that "nuclear threats/strikes are the way to go."

Newsweek has contacted the British foreign ministry for comment.

Guests on Russian state TV have regularly suggested that Moscow use nuclear weapons on countries that are backing Ukraine in the war.

In September, State Duma Deputy Andrey Gurulyov, former deputy commander of Russia's southern military district, warned that Russia could turn the U.K. into a "Martian desert" for its military backing of Ukraine.

Kyiv blamed Russia for sabotaging Nord Stream 1 and 2, according to BBC News, which raised suspicions that Moscow was using weaponizing energy in Europe in response to EU sanctions imposed due to Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

The pipe's leaks took place in international waters but within the economic zones of Denmark and Sweden, which as yet have not pinpointed blame.

Per a Reuters report from last month, the British Ministry of Defence rejected Russian claims that the U.K. Royal Navy was responsible in a bid "to detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine."