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Military expert Alexander Sharkovsky has urged Vladimir Putin to use nuclear “carpet bombings from the air”, otherwise known as air gravity bombs, to obliterate swaths of Ukrainian land and regain the front foot in the invasion. As NATO forces pledged to replenish their supply chains to Ukraine and called on the weapons industry to ramp up production lines, Mr Sharkovsky said Russia would have to strike before “Ukraine will be flooded with an enormous surge of weapons”, which he believes will take a year and a half. When asked if Russia had the resources to launch a swift counter-offensive of their own, the military expert suggested they would if they utilised their tactical nuclear missiles, as he said “our storage depots are crammed full of air gravity bombs”.
Sharkovsky said: “With respect to the anti-terrorist corporation, I believe that it would be an outdated measure.
“Right now, we should ratchet up our military actions, ratchet them up to such a level that Ukraine is left paralysed.
“We have no other option for a fast way out of this situation. We have to achieve victory in a short time period. It is very important and I will explain why.
“In the United States, they have started the process of expanding the production of weapons. They will need up to a year and a half for that.
“If we prolong this [war], Ukraine will be flooded with an enormous surge of weapons. If Ukraine lacks the manpower, it will be acquired in Poland or Slovakia.”
State TV host Andrey Norkin asked: “Do we have the resources to finish it quickly?”
Sharkovsky said: “We have enough resources to finish it quickly. We have an arsenal. Our storage depots are crammed full of air gravity bombs, our depots are overflowing with them.
“We just need the political will to use them, to conduct carpet bombings from the air.”
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But while Putin has made numerous threats, even citing the US atom bombs used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the Second World War in Japan as “precedent” for his own potential endeavours, their tactical warheads remain several steps away from deployment.
Russia is estimated to have between 1,500 and 2,000 tactical warheads, including for things like gravity bombs, air-to-surface missiles, anti-ship missiles, cruise missiles, and even torpedoes.
However, most if not all of these warheads are in central storage, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Pavel Podvig, a longtime expert on Russia’s nuclear arsenal, said: “None of these ‘tactical’ weapons…are deployed; they are not mated to their delivery systems. So, they are in fact further away from being used — it would take a number of steps to deploy them.”
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