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Nuclear warning from Nobel Prize-winning Russian journalist Muratov

Nuclear warning from Nobel Prize-winning Russian journalist Muratov

Russian authorities may have shut down his newspaper, but journalist Dmitry Muratov refuses to be silenced.

The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and the Russian laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize is worried about how far the Kremlin will go in its confrontation with the West, the BBC reports .

"Two generations have lived without the threat of nuclear war," says Muratov. "But that period is over. Will Putin push the nuclear button or not? Who knows? No one knows that. There is no one person who can say for sure."

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow's nuclear strikes have been loud and frequent.

Senior officials have given not-so-subtle hints that Western countries arming Ukraine should not push Russia too far. A few days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Then one of his closest aides, Nikolai Patrushev, warned that Russia had a "unique modern weapon capable of destroying any enemy, including the United States."

Muratov has found troubling signs inside Russia.

"We see how state propaganda is preparing people to think that nuclear war is not a bad thing," he says. "On the TV channels here, nuclear war and nuclear weapons are promoted as if they were advertising pet food."

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