Vladimir Putin went full Bond villain in his latest TV appearance, threatening the world with nuclear armageddon before letting out a sinister chuckle.
Putin was appearing on Russian state TV when he seemed to crack a joke about nuclear war.
The twisted tyrant was speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Moscow-based think tank with strong ties to the Kremlin.
He is asked about the possibility of nuclear war, in the wake of escalating tensions between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine.
In a short clip shared online, interviewer Fyodor Lukyanov says to Putin: “We became a little nervous recalling your comments at this very event four years ago that ‘we’ll all end up in paradise’. We’re not in a hurry, are we?”
The Russian president remains silent and looks away for a chilling 10-second pause.
Eventually, the interviewer breaks the tension by saying: “You’re thinking. That in itself is somehow alarming.”
Putin then attempts to make a sick joke about nuclear war, smirking at the audience before adding: “I did that on purpose to alarm you.”
He then chuckles to himself while the host and audience laugh nervously.
In one of his longest public appearances since the start of his invasion on February 24, Putin claimed the world faces its most dangerous decade since the Second World War.
He also insisted he had no regrets about his war, which has seen almost 70,000 Russians lose their lives.
And he also accused former UK prime minister Liz Truss of publicly threatening his country with a nuclear attack during her 44-day spell in charge.
He joked that Truss had made a “folly” and was a “bit out of it”.
Addressing the elephant in the room, Putin, 70, denied that Moscow was preparing to use nuclear weapons in its bid to defeat Ukraine.
“We have no need to do this,” he said. “There’s no sense for us, neither political nor military.”
He was speaking amid growing public anger at home in the face of his planned mobilisation of 300,000 Russians for his war.
A day before his Moscow address, he oversaw routine exercises involving a supposed retaliatory nuke strike.
Video released by the Russian military-run Zvezda website showed armed forces personnel in front of computers launching a Yars ballistic missile.
But Putin insisted this was only in response to threats from the West.
“We’ve never proactively said anything about Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons,” he said. “We’ve only responded with hints to comments voiced by the leaders of Western countries.”
Singling out Liz Truss for her suggestion during an August campaigning event that she would be prepared to press the nuclear button if required, he said: “What were we supposed to do? Keep silent? Pretend that we didn’t hear it?”
Repeating his longstanding justification for the war in Ukraine, he denounced the West’s “dangerous, bloody and dirty game” of denying countries their sovereignty and uniqueness.
And he claimed that the West’s “dominance” over world affairs was coming to an end.
“We’re at a historical frontier,” he said. “Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War Two.”
Continuing his railing at the West, he went on: “They are fuelling the war in Ukraine, escalating provocations around Taiwan, destabilising the world food and energy markets,” he ranted.
“As far as the last one is concerned, it was not deliberate, we don’t doubt that, it was due to systemic errors.”
However, he also hinted he was open to peace talks with the West.
“Either we continue accumulating the burden of problems that is said to crush all of us or we can work together to find solutions functional if imperfect ones solutions capable of rendering our world more stable and safer,” he said.
“The crisis has taken on a truly global magnitude. It affects everyone and we should not enter into any illusions, humanity is essentially faced with two options.”
It comes as Putin’s reported goddaughter was filmed fleeing to the West.
Former Playboy model Ksenia Sobchak, whose father was Putin’s political mentor, was captured escaping to Lithuania as she faces a criminal probe back home.
This article was originally published by The Sun and reproduced with permission
