A retired Irish army officer has condemned the “absolutely horrific” threats to Ireland made by Russia which were aired on Russian TV this week.
In the report, TV presenter and close contact of Putin, Dmitry Kiselyov, showed an underwater missile being detonated just off the coast of Donegal.
Explaining how the war weapon would demolish the entire country without warning, Kiselyov explained: "It approaches its target at a depth of 1km at a speed of 200km/h.
“There's no way of stopping this underwater drone. The warhead on it has a yield of up to 100 megatonnes.
"The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo by Britain's coastline will cause a gigantic tsunami wave up to 500m high.
"Such a barrage alone also carries extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn what might be left of them into a radioactive desert.”
Just 24 hours after the video was picked up by Irish media, Tom Clonan, Senator, retired army officer, and Security Analyst told Newstalk Breakfast that this threat is “significant on a number of levels.”
“I watched the clips and basically the person who is presenting these clips of the destinations off the Irish coasts is a guy Dmitry Kiselyov, and he’s very close to Vladimir Putin - he’s one of his inner circle,” he explained.
“So, on one level this tells you the thinking in the Kremlin in terms of how disinhibited they are and now about the threat of nuclear retaliation on the West.
“Now, this was first raised in February by Putin himself, when he warned the world of a retaliation and I think that his exact words were ‘of which humanity has never seen before.’
“On a kind of a practical level, the simulation shows what they call a Poseidon nuclear underwater drone which has a warhead of up to about 100 megatons, and the idea is as presented by the Russians is that this would be detonated underwater off the northeast coast somewhere above Donegal - maybe about 100 miles or so out.
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“This would create such a shockwave and a blast that it would create a tsunami of 500m tall that would sweep over Ireland and Britain - which they, rather irritatingly refer to as the British Isles.
“It would represent the destruction of both countries and would see the annihilation of millions and millions of people.”
He continued: “So, it’s an absolutely horrific threat. I mean to actually put it into a graphic and to present it in that way.
“Now, I suppose, not unlike the Russian Navy exercises off the southwest coast it kind of also points the finger at Europe’s vulnerability.”
Mr Clonan said Ireland doesn’t have the capacity to monitor a threat of this level, especially something being launched underwater.
“They’re fighting a war of aggression in Ukraine which is at the very eastern fringes of Europe and we’re at the very western frame but we don’t have any capacity to monitor our ocean space or economic area,” he explained.
“But also, if this drone is launched underwater, they’re saying to the brits that your missile shield won’t work because we will do this underwater.”
Although many people are sounding the alarm online, Clonan said the chances of the missile actually being launched in Ireland’s direction are “extremely small.”
“I know there will be many people listening to this who will be very frightened by this, or it may provoke fear and unease, but the chances of this happening are extremely small.
“This is propaganda.”
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