Putin hires hardline professor who suggested nuking Europe to 'test NATO's ... trends now

Vladimir Putin has re-hired a former adviser who previously called for Russia to carry out a preemptive nuclear strike against Europe to 'test NATO's resolve'.

Professor Sergei Karaganov, a political scientists who has been hired by the Kremlin to study how to 'deter the West', said in the past that such an attack on Europe would be the best way of saving the world from a full-blown war.

In addition to Putin, the 71-year-old was also a presidential adviser to his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, and is seen as being a hugely influential Russian foreign policy expert.

He is linked to several pervasive ideas in Russian foreign policy such as the so-called Karaganov doctrine - on the rights of ethnic Russians living abroad, and the Putin Doctrine - the support of authoritarian regimes while undermining democracies.

He has also been a staunch supporter of Putin's invasion of Ukraine from the beginning, having helped formulate a number of the key ideas that led to it in 2022.

What's more, he has also promoted the idea of a 'Greater Eurasia' and defended closer ties with China, while arguing the era of Western dominance has ended.

Putin, he has argued, is right to free the world from the 'western yoke'.

Despite this, in an essay last year for a Russian foreign policy website, Karaganov called for the use of nuclear weapons to smash 'the will of the West'.

He made the extraordinary claim that use of such weapons against the West can 'save humanity' from the radioactive ruins of full-scale atomic Armageddon.

He expressed scepticism that the United States would come to the defence of Europe in such an event, saying only a 'madman' in the White House would sacrifice Boston for Poznan - Poland's fifth largest city. 'Both the US and Europe understand this perfectly well, though they prefer not to think about it,' he wrote.

In order to 'to arouse the instinct of self-preservation that the West has lost,' he argued, Russia 'will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set unacceptably high, and by rapidly but prudently moving up the deterrence-escalation ladder.'

Furthermore, he has said a Russian victory in Ukraine can only be achieved if the West was forced to 'retreat strategically, or even surrender'.

He warned that leaders in China would be unlikely to support a preemptive strike on Europe, but said Beijing would 'rejoice at heart that a powerful blow has been dealt to the reputation and position of the United States'.

'Morally, this is a terrible choice as we will use God's weapon, thus dooming ourselves to grave spiritual losses. But if we do not do this, not only Russia can die, but most likely the entire human civilization will cease to exist,' he said. 

Now, Karaganov - a senior academic at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow - is understood to have been hired by the Kremlin once more.

He will carry out further research into foreign police for Moscow's rulers, with an investigation by Russian opposition news site Meduza finding that he has been commissioned to carry out eight studies by Putin's office and the government.

While the cost to the Russian taxpayer is unclear, a source inside the university told Meduza it was 'no less than ten million rubles' (around £850,000).

Meduza reported that the topics he has been commissioned to research include:  'the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence in current conditions with relation to Russian politics' and 'a dialogue on developing a new concept of nuclear deterrence in the quadrilateral Russia-China-India-Pakistan format'.

A source told the Russian publication that the professor would not manage the projects on his own, and speculated the job may be symbolic.

'There's a feeling at the university that they're making sure certain people are 'well fed'.' the source told Meduza.