Russia’s Interior Ministry finds nothing wrong with RT editor-in-chief’s proposal to conduct nuclear explosion in Siberia

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced Monday that it had found no “grounds to respond” to RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan’s statement that “nothing terrible at all” would happen should Russia conduct a nuclear explosion “somewhere over Siberia”.

The response was shared by Moscow Duma deputy Yevgeny Stupin, who had demanded Simonyan’s remarks be evaluated by the ministry.

“Of course, this isn’t [the same as] placing anti-war price tags in a store,” Stupin commented, alluding to the case of St. Petersburg artist Sasha Skochilenko, who was sentenced to seven years in prison last week for her anti-war protest.

In early October, Simonyan said during an episode of her show Q.E.D. that if Russia were to conduct a nuclear explosion somewhere over Siberia, then “all radioelectronics, all digital equipment, and all satellites would be disabled,” an outcome she described as “the most herbivorous option”.

“We wouldn’t even have to strike Washington. A smart person recently told me something I neither knew nor could have guessed: if we conduct a nuclear explosion … over our territory, somewhere over Siberia for example, there’ll be no issues on the ground. Nothing terrible at all. No nuclear winter or catastrophic radiation levels that would kill everyone,” she said.

Siberian politicians didn’t agree, with the mayor of Novosibirsk Anatoly Lokot saying that “there’s nothing good about thermonuclear explosions.”