Putin is prepared to drop a nuclear bomb on Daesh

Doing nothing to quash fears we’re headed for World War Three and should probably find a bunker to huddle into, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has just raised the prospect of dropping nuclear bombs on Daesh, the militant group formally known as ISIS.

Appearing on state TV to talk up his country’s increased military campaign in the Middle East - which he claims has struck “300 targets of different kinds” in the past three days – Putin warned that a new underwater missile system on Russian submarines could be equipped with nukes:

“With regard to strikes from a submarine: we certainly need to analyse everything that is happening on the battlefield, how the weapons work.

“Both the [Kalibr] missiles and the Kh-101 rockets are generally showing very good results. We now see that these are new, modern and highly effective high-precision weapons that can be equipped either with conventional or special nuclear warheads.”

Making matters worse, the country's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu also confirmed that recent cruise missile strikes around Raqqa had been launched from its growing fleet of submarines in the Mediterranean Sea, each capable of hitting targets from 1,5000 miles at low altitude.

So now Putin’s gone all Doctor Strangelove on us, should we concede that our mushroom-clouded end is imminent and that all those 'preppers' in the US were correct all along?

Well not quite, as Putin also said he hopes they'll never reach the Slavic equivalent of Defcon 5:

“Naturally, we do not need [nuclear weapons] in fighting terrorists, and I hope we will never need it. But overall, this speaks to our significant progress in terms of improving weaponry and equipment being supplied to the Russian army and navy.”

Sounds like grandstanding to us.

Even so, the mere mention of going nuclear won’t help anyone in this already tense international stand-off the western world finds itself locked in, and if anything will just throw up some more big question marks: how can you bomb an ideal (given that Daesh aren’t actually a recognised state)? How many civilians would needlessly die? 

And, please can nobody tell Donald Trump about this?

[Via: Mail Online]

[Images: RT]