The Kremlin is planning to erode US support for Ukraine by using propaganda about the threat of ‘nuclear winter’ to instil fear in the American people, it has been claimed.
Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons several times during his war on Kyiv, but Western support has remained steadfast.
The next step to try and chip away at that support will be to amplify the voices of scientists to spread warnings about nuclear winter, according to Estonia’s annual Foreign Intelligence service report.
Nuclear winter is the theory that smoke from the thousands of fires caused by nuclear bombs would block out the sun’s light and send global temperatures plummeting below zero.
The freezing cold and swathes of land poisoned by radioactive fallout from the weapons would cripple agriculture, killing far more people than those caught up in the initial blasts.
Moscow is said to be considering using popular Russian figures like Vladimir Pozner, a TV personality famous for presenting the Soviet Union’s message to the West during the Cold War.
The report from Estonia claims he is willing to resume a similar role focusing on the threat of nuclear winter.
The Kremlin’s campaign is expected to employ the use of ‘YouTube, podcasts and carefully selected spokespersons with authoritative and “palatable” viewpoints’ to highlight the consequences of any potential nuclear exchange, the report added.
Nuclear winter came to worldwide attention in the 1980s thanks to the work of scientists including Brian Toon, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Findings by he and his colleagues – backed by those of a team of Soviet scientists – helped persuade Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan to reduce the number of warheads in 1986.
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‘Both Gorbachev and Reagan said that their science communities told them that if they had a nuclear war, that it was going to kill everybody on the planet mostly,’ Prof Toon told Metro last year.
Prof Toon’s TED Talk titled ‘I’ve studied nuclear war for 35 years – you should be worried’ from 2018 now has more than nine million views on YouTube.
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