Frants Klintsevich said that the UK would be wiped off the face of the earth (Picture: Getty)

Britain would be wiped off the face of the earth if it deployed a first strike nuclear attack against Russia, a top Vladimir Putin crony has warned.

Retired colonel Frants Klintsevich was responding to comments from Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon that ‘in the most extreme circumstances, we have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike’.

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The senior Russian senator said that were Britain to launch a preemptive attack on a hostile nuclear foe then ‘not having the biggest territory, it is likely to be literally wiped out by the counter strike’.



Another translation of his words – used by news agency TASS – means Britain would be ‘razed to the ground’ in a retaliatory strike.


Putin loyalist Klintsevich, a 59 year old former paratrooper who served for Soviet forces in Afghanistan, declared that Sir Michael’s comment was ‘disgusting’ and deserved a ‘tough response’.

He said that Britain would be ‘razed to the ground’ in a retaliatory strike (Picture: Getty)

The Defence Secretary’s comments came in the context of an election war or words with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over nuclear defence.

But the Russian senator, deputy chairman of the upper house of parliament’s defence and security committee, said: ‘I think that the statement made by UK defence minister Michael Fallon deserves a tough response and I am not afraid to overdo it.

‘In the best case this statement should be taken as an element of psychological war – which looks particularly disgusting in such a context.

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‘Otherwise, it sounds really bad, because a reasonable question arises: Against whom is Great Britain going to preemptively use nuclear weapons?’

If Britain intended to use atomic weapons against a non nuclear state ‘then probably English people desperately want to share the laurels of the USA who threw nuclear bombs at defenseless Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

‘But those times have gone for good, as has the era of the greatness of the British Empire. As we say, cut your coat according to your cloth.’

He was responding to comments made by Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon (Picture: EPA)

Military expert Konstantin Sivkov said: ‘The UK’s readiness to stage a nuclear attack in ‘the most extreme circumstances’ means only one thing.

‘That it is ready to do it in any circumstances, unlike Russia.’

Criticising Sir Michael’s statement, he said Britain ‘has quite vague reasons’ for what would justify a first strike.

‘This can be used by military adventurers who will perform preemptive nuclear attack,’ he said.

‘If this is so, it means that the world is standing on the edge of the nuclear war.’