On Wednesday, Reuters reported that a member of a Russian think tank suggested that Moscow engage in a "demonstrative" nuclear test to warn Western nations against allowing Ukraine to engage targets inside Russia.
The proposal by Dmitry Suslov, a senior member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, comes as several European NATO leaders have expressed the idea of allowing Kiev to use their weaponry in a more offensive manner.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has warned that such policies could trigger a global conflict as they would draw NATO into a direct action with his country.
"To confirm the seriousness of Russia's intentions and to convince our opponents of Moscow's readiness to escalate, it is worth considering a demonstrative (i.e., non-combat) nuclear explosion," Suslov wrote in Profil.
"The political and psychological effect of a nuclear mushroom cloud, which will be shown live on all TV channels around the world, will hopefully remind Western politicians of the one thing that has prevented wars between the great powers since 1945 and that they have now largely lost - fear of nuclear war."
The news agency stated that Ukraine is pressing its allies on the matter, arguing that attacking Russian military infrastructure with long-range missiles is necessary to prevent the almost daily air attacks that it is facing.
