RT executive Margarita Simonyan launches defamation suit after suggesting Russia should blow up nuclear bomb ‘somewhere over Siberia’

RT executive Margarita Simonyan says she’s filed a complaint about “some aide to some legislator” who had accused her of saying that Russia should launch a nuclear strike on Siberia.

“The earthly within me has prevailed,” Simonyan wrote on Telegram, suggesting that (contrary to her heavenly nature) she was obliged to launch a defamation suit, taking the first step by filing a police report.

The propagandist insists she couldn’t possibly have argued for a nuclear strike on the Russian territory. “This monstrous allegation,” she wrote, “smears my reputation and inflicts all manner of damages and suffering upon me.”

The culprit of Simonyan’s complaint is most likely Nikolay Korolev, an aide to Moscow Municipal Deputy Evgeny Stupin. Korolev had previously written that he had appealed to the Federal Investigative Committee and to the law enforcement authorities, asking them to assess the substance of what Simonyan had said on her live RT show on October 2.

What Simonyan said was that Russia could produce a nuclear explosion “somewhere over Siberia,” which in her opinion wouldn’t have any adverse consequences on the ground. At the same time, she said, a nuclear blast would be an effective “nuclear ultimatum” to the West, which is now trying to “strangle Russia” by proxy, in Ukraine.

A number of Siberian politicians were quick to criticize Simonyan’s nuclear idea. The media executive retorted to their criticisms by threatening to sue.

The Kremlin has distanced itself from the discussion. The presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that Simonyan’s statements “don’t always reflect” Moscow’s official position.