Russia's flagship state news agency has publicly floated a nuclear attack on a NATO member state — and then tried to pretend it never happened.
On Friday, RIA Novosti published a column by Russian political commentator Aleksandr Nosovich titled "Russia faces another special military operation. It will be very short." The piece argued that Moscow could skip a ground invasion of Lithuania entirely and instead strike the Baltic NATO country with nuclear-armed missiles. Hours later, the agency deleted the article, saying it did not reflect its editorial line or Russian state policy. Copies of the text survive in web archives.
What the column actually said
Nosovich, editor-in-chief of the pro-Russian publication RuBaltic.Ru and a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, framed Lithuania as the next target of Russian aggression. He wrote that since Russia's adversaries were "the first to raise the nuclear threat," Moscow could dispense with deploying ground troops and rely on "only missiles with an appropriate charge" — missiles carrying the appropriate warheads.
He claimed any conflict in the Baltic would be "necessarily shorter" than Russia's war against Ukraine, citing Lithuania's geography. And he laced the column with insults, calling Lithuania "a suicidal state with no brains at all," a "useful idiot," and a "small but proud kamikaze in Russia's near abroad."
The column appeared as an attributed opinion piece rather than a Kremlin announcement. RIA Novosti's removal notice said the text "does not correspond with the editorial board's opinion, editorial policy, or state policy of the Russian Federation." But its publication on a state-owned agency — even briefly — was enough to send a chill through the Baltic region, and the archive copies ensure it cannot be fully buried.
Why Lithuania is in Moscow's crosshairs
The column was a direct response to a vote in Lithuania's parliament, the Seimas, which on September 22 advanced a proposal to remove the country's constitutional ban on weapons of mass destruction — including nuclear weapons — and on foreign military bases on Lithuanian territory. The amendment passed its first reading with 99 lawmakers in favour, 13 against and five abstentions.
Two more votes are still required for final adoption, on October 6 and January 12, 2027, each needing the support of at least 94 of the Seimas's 141 members. Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas said Lithuania must be able to participate fully in NATO's nuclear deterrence system. Laurynas Kasčiūnas, a former defence minister, argued that nuclear weapons are one of the most effective means of deterring Russia, noting that Lithuania is the only country in the region still carrying such a restriction.
The debate is part of a wider European shift. French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to extend France's nuclear umbrella to allies willing to host French strategic aircraft, Finland lifted its own ban on nuclear weapons earlier this year, and Latvia has announced talks with France on the plan. Moscow has warned that Lithuania could come within range of its nuclear weapons if it hosted such an arsenal — a warning the RIA column has now escalated into open nuclear blackmail.
A trial balloon Moscow wanted to take back
The Kremlin will insist the column was one commentator's excess. But the timing fits a clear pattern of escalating nuclear signalling. It came the same day Vladimir Putin told Russian journalists that Ukraine would "feel Russia's retaliatory strikes" for its attacks on Russian territory, and days after Denmark's military intelligence service warned that Russia could launch a limited strike against a NATO country within months.
State media in authoritarian Russia does not publish — and then hastily delete — such pieces by accident. The column served its purpose the moment it appeared: to inject the idea of a nuclear strike on Lithuania into the information space, gauge the Western reaction, and then retreat behind a bland editorial disclaimer.
Vilnius is not ignoring it. Lithuanian officials have framed the constitutional change as precisely the kind of deterrence signal that reduces the risk of Russian aggression. The Seimas vote schedule means Moscow will have months to escalate its rhetoric further — and NATO's eastern flank will be watching every word.
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