The UK and its European allies appear to have been the latest victim of Russia’s threats for World War 3 during last night’s (July 20) Russian state TV show “Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov”, which featured host Vladimir Solovyov and head of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT Margarita Simonyan. In a curated clip, translated by Russian Media Monitor and published on YouTube, Mr Solovyov, a propaganda puppet of Vladimir Putin’s, began by referring to the events in the West as “delirium”.
“Therefore, anyone in Russia who is thinking that everything is fine, we’ll make up soon and so on, come to your senses […] The West has embarked upon a war with us. The West is convinced that this is the only option”. He then described the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, as a “German lowlife” and played a clip in which the politician discussed Germany’s plans to defend itself against Russia in a world that has been “largely changed by Russia”. Mr Solovyov also suggested using the RS-28 Sarmat, Russia’s most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), or the Poseidon, an unmanned underwater nuclear-powered drone capable of travelling up to 100 mph and with a warhead of up to a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. “If there is no Britain, Germany will be left alone,” Mr Solovyov threatened.
Ms Simonyan then appears to predict the future with three possible scenarios for the end of the Russia-Ukraine war: “Seeing people in the street, former classmates, old friends, and everyone is asking, ‘What will happen? What does it mean, these 50 days?’, referring to Donald Trump’s recent ultimatum to Mr Putin that Russia must reach a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days or the US will impose “very severe” economic penalties, including 100% tariffs on countries still buying Russian goods, like oil and uranium.
Ms Simonyan is the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT and the state-owned media group Rossiya Segodnya. In 2022 and 2023, Margarita Simonyan was sanctioned by the European Union as “a central figure of the Russian Government propaganda”. She was sanctioned by the UK and Ukraine over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2024, she was sanctioned by the United States for alleged interference in the 2024 US elections.
“The first one is the most improbable but the most favourable […] Can’t something happen, like serious civil unrest or clashes? It’s hard to imagine that this would happen as a result of elections, since democracy hasn’t existed there [in America and Europe] for a long time, so that’s not something we are counting on.
“Maybe not just them, but all of humanity, will encounter what knowledgeable people are already stating out loud with a bit of panic, that artificial intelligence may get out of control.
“The second option, which is dear to your [Mr Solovyov’s] heart […] They won’t stop just because they have no reason to simply stop. The West is losing nothing through this. It’s only profiting. As you [Mr Solovyov] noted, their military-industrial complex is growing by leaps and bounds, jobs and taxes, everything is great. Why would they stop?
“The only thing that can stop them is what they call an ‘imminent threat’ in English, an imminent, unavoidable threat outside the boundaries of what they consider acceptable,” she continued. “Since they’re total sissies for a long time, they’ve considered none of it to be acceptable. Not even a sad little drone.
“Our airports are being attacked and so on, but we are hanging in there. We understand that this is the price of victory […] For them, any of it is an unacceptable threat. A threat of a nuclear strike would be an especially unacceptable threat for them, targeting any place.
However, Ms Simonyan revealed that she does not believe there will be a nuclear war, because the West “are such sissies”: “I think, it will get to a point where we will have to make this threat. For some reason, they always think that we are dumb. No one knows why because the entire collective West is utterly brazen.
“The third option, they are counting on our people getting tired. If their plan comes true, and I’m sure that it will not, but for them, it would be the most succulent bite, the tastiest morsel, for us to do what we did twice in the past century, when the Russian Empire fell apart and when the Soviet Union disintegrated.
“This is their preference not only for us to flog ourselves, but for us to cut things off ourselves, the way we once cut off Poland, Finland and Kars. Then, in the 1990s, we cut 14 out of 15 republics off ourselves. They want us to cut off our own hands and feet, or preferably the head. They are doing everything to achieve this and they are very successful at this.”