Russian citizens urged 'prepare for Armageddon' after nuclear WW3 threat to UK

Alexander Dugin, one of Putin's top propagandists, issued a thinly veiled warning about nuclear war, as Russia launched a nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile in Ukraine

One of Vladimir Putin's top propagandists has warned Russians to brace for the end of the world.

Alexander Dugin, 64, an ultra-nationalist philosopher often seen as a key architect of the Kremlin's worldview, made comments widely interpreted as a thinly veiled warning about the growing threat of nuclear war.

In an apocalyptic online post, Dugin - dubbed "Putin's brain" or "Putin's Rasputin" - called on all unbaptised Russians to be baptised immediately and urged those who do not attend church to start doing so now, to prepare for paradise in the afterlife.

"We can’t be sure that eternity won’t arrive soon, and then it will be too late," he wrote. "One day, eternity will arrive, and the moment of free choice will disappear. Everything will disappear, but the decision to undergo holy baptism and the church sacraments will remain."

Although he did not explicitly mention nuclear weapons, the Orthodox-nationalist thinker's doom-laden language mirrors the way Kremlin-aligned ideologues frame nuclear war: as an irreversible civilisational rupture against the West, after which only faith remains.

He added ominously: "This moment of freedom will likely be with us for only a very short time. Our faith is in the Saviour. No one can save us except Him. It is to Him that we must go. Without delay."

Dugin's daughter, Darya Dugina, a prominent pro-Kremlin commentator, was killed in a car bombing outside Moscow aged 29 in August 2022. Russian authorities believe her father was the intended target and blamed the strike on a Ukrainian hit squad.

It comes after Russian lawmaker Alexei Zhuravlev issued a threat to the UK and US following the capture of Russian-linked oil tanker Marinera on Wednesday.

Zhuravlev urged Putin to "attack with torpedoes" after the US operation, supported by British armed forces, and to "sink a couple of American Coast Guard boats". He added: "This is nothing less than outright piracy - the seizure of a civilian vessel by the armed forces of the American navy."

He continued: "In essence, it is the same as an encroachment on Russian territory, since the tanker was sailing under our national flag. There is no doubt that the response must be firm and swift - our military doctrine in such a case even provides for the use of nuclear weapons."

On Friday, Moscow fired a nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile near Lviv - just 40 miles from NATO territory in Poland. The hypersonic missile, travelling at an estimated 8,000mph, is believed to been aimed at Europe's largest underground gas storage facility on the outskirts of Lviv.

The Oreshnik was fired from the Astrakhan region, deep in Russia, and took less than 15 minutes to reach Lviv, producing a shower of bright flashes that turned the night sky pink-red.

The missile's speed quickly led to speculation that Russia had used an Oreshnik-type ballistic weapon. The Russian Defence Ministry later confirmed the strike, claiming it was a response to an alleged Ukrainian attempt to assassinate Putin at his Valdai residence in Novgorod region. Western intelligence and Ukraine have denied that any such strike occurred.

The Russian Defence Ministry said: "In response to the Kyiv regime's terrorist attack on the residence of the President of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod region, which took place on the night of December 29, 2025, the Russian Armed Forces launched a massive strike using long-range, land- and sea-based precision weapons, including the Oreshnik medium-range ground-mobile missile system, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), against critical targets in Ukraine.

"The strike's objectives were achieved. The [drone] production facilities used in the terrorist attack were hit, as well as energy infrastructure supporting Ukraine's military-industrial complex. Any terrorist actions by the criminal Ukrainian regime will not go unanswered."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha‎ called the strike a "grave threat to security on the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community". He confirmed on social media that the ballistic missile was fired at the Lviv region.