During his speech at the International Security Forum, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) chief Sergey Naryshkin threatened the use of nuclear weapons, spoke about plans for a war against Europe, and voiced the Kremlin's fears.
Ukraine will receive nuclear weapons from France and Great Britain and will use them to blackmail Western countries, as it seeks to control the entire world, according to a false narrative launched by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ukraine will collapse within a few days, losses on the front will cause Russians to revolt against Putin, Russia and NATO will end up in a nuclear war—these are some of the scenarios that have been considered in the four years since the launch of the large-scale invasion. These "prophecies," even if they have not come true, have marked the conflict and the behavior of the various players directly or indirectly involved in it and can provide benchmarks for understanding the present and clues for future developments.
The Budapest Memorandum, to which Russia is a signatory, guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Yet Russian propaganda now claims that the invasion is legitimate because Kyiv has “grossly violated” the principles of the OSCE.
Russian propaganda has intertwined anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western narratives with a view to weakening Ukrainian society from the inside and cutting off external aid to Kyiv.
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees that Russia violated with its 2014 invasion. President Zelensky has recently said his country could rebuild its nuclear arsenal.
Russia is threatening to unleash a nuclear Armageddon if certain “red lines” are crossed to prevent the delivery of weapons to Ukraine. However, the threats do not seem as serious as Putin wants everyone to believe.
Russia, China and the United States, as well as smaller countries, appear to have all enrolled in a new nuclear arms race. The typical Cold War rhetoric is also back, with Russia threatening to use its strategic arsenal.
Ukraine may use a radiological bomb under a false flag operation to accuse Russia of nuclear terrorism, pro-Kremlin media writes, citing Moscow officials.