Russian nationalists urge Putin to abandon diplomacy and consider nuclear weapons

Angered by Ukraine’s drone strikes and disillusioned by what they see as an unfulfilled U.S. promise to end the war on favorable terms, hardline Russian supporters are urging President Vladimir Putin to set diplomacy aside and escalate the conflict.

Such demands are not new. For a long time, nationalist voices have called for full mobilization, strikes on the government district in Kyiv, the killing of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and attacks on European drone factories. Some of them have gone even further, urging the Kremlin to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

According to analysts, the increasingly harsh tone is linked to growing concern over the scale and consequences of Ukrainian drone attacks, but also to the broader debate over how Russia, with its vast territory, can defend itself while continuing to pursue its military objectives in the war it launched in 2022.

Ukraine’s deep strikes this month, targeting Moscow, St. Petersburg and Crimea, as well as what Russia described as two deadly attacks on passenger buses, have strengthened these calls and made them even louder.

“What else has to happen before we start really fighting? War means victory at any cost. The Ukrainians are at war, so they are fighting with everything they have,” said Konstantin Malofeyev, a nationalist tycoon, after a Ukrainian strike set an oil refinery in Moscow on fire last week.

“Why aren’t we using nuclear weapons, which our ancestors developed and stockpiled with all the power of the nation precisely for this purpose?” he asked.

Some nationalist commentators have called for Moscow to adopt what they describe as Iran’s successful military and diplomatic tactics against the United States. The Obsessed by War blog, which has more than 650,000 followers, has called for Ukraine’s major cities to be made uninhabitable through bombardment. Others argue that the time has come to abandon the U.S.-mediated peace talks and aim for the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state.