A leading ally of Vladimir Putin has highlighted the crater made by a test launch of Russia ’s new hypersonic Satan-2 nuclear missile in a bid to scare the West.
The 26ft deep hole was made without an atomic warhead at a training range in Kamchatka.
Dmitry Rogozin - head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos - said: “With a nuclear charge, such a crater at an enemy site will be…well, very large and very deep - and radioactive.
“And not just one, but exactly as many as the most powerful nuclear missile in the world will deliver to the territory of a fierce enemy.
“And we will soon have almost 50 such Sarmats [the missile is known in the West as Satan-2] on combat duty.
“It remains only to advise the aggressors to talk more politely with Russia.”
Rogozin, a former deputy prime minister and Putin super-loyalist, has made several recent threats of nuclear strikes against the West involving Satan-2.
He announced almost 50 will be deployed by autumn.
Rogozin is seen as a hardliner in the war with Ukraine.
For his latest threat, he used footage from Russian TV channel Zvezda, run by the Defence Ministry.
The Satan-2 missile is the height of a 14-storey tower block and weighs 208 tons, say the Russians.
The intercontinental ballistic missile has a range of 11,200 miles and can strike at targets at 15,880mph after flying in outer space or via the north or south poles.
Zvezda TV journalist Alexander Kursky said at the Kura military test site on the Kamchatka peninsula: “This crater left by a Sarmat test launch just strikes my imagination.
“No warhead, but the depth is 8 metres (26ft) and diameter 20 metres (66ft).”
Rogozin - who is in charge of Russia’s part in the International Space Station - last week boasted to schoolchildren and students that Satan-2 could demolish “half the coast of a continent” of a Western enemy “which we may not like due to its aggressive policy”.
Two weeks ago Rogozin threatened to expunge Ukraine from the map and destroy the West in half an hour.
“NATO is waging a war against us,” he said at the time.
"They didn't announce it, but that doesn't change anything.
“Now it's obvious to everyone.”
The 58-year-old Putin crony said: “In a nuclear war, NATO countries will be destroyed by us in half an hour.
“But we must not allow it, because the consequences of the exchange of nuclear strikes will affect the state of our Earth.
“Therefore, we will have to defeat this economically and militarily more powerful enemy with conventional armed means.”
He urged Putin to go further to win the war - with “mobilisation of the state economy.”
Industry must be forced to serve military objectives, he said.
“This must be done immediately and quickly,” he said.
Using a word that Putin has banned in relation to Ukraine - ‘war’ - he said: “This is a war for the truth - and the right of Russia to exist as a single and independent state.”
He insisted: “The very existence of a Ukraine separate from Russia will inevitably turn it into anti-Russia and a springboard of the West for aggression against our people.
“That is why what we call a Special Military Operation goes far beyond its original meaning and geography.”
