THIS IS the chilling moment Vladimir Putin watched a recreated nuclear explosion before viewing the ‘big red button’ at a Cold War bunker.
It comes as nuke fears loom and the he threatens the world by resuming atomic bomb testing.
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Footage taken at a major exhibition of Russian achievements in Moscow showed Putin looking at a mockup bunker used for early USSR nuclear tests
The dictator watched through a slit in the wall of the bunker as a “nuclear explosion” was detonated.
The bunker is just six miles from the first Soviet nuclear explosions as the Cold War arms race gathered pace.
A guide warns the dictator: “Don’t be scared…it’ll be quite loud.”
The tour came as Putin hinted at restarting nuclear tests in the Arctic – on archipelago Novaya Zemlya.
Although the dictator was offered the chance to press a fake red button during the tour, he declined.
Mad Vlad has already revoked Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
This means Putin will be able to conduct nuclear weapons tests or other nuclear explosions under water, in the atmosphere or in outer space.
He ordered his defence minister Sergei Shoigu to be ready to resume tests and, in August, Shoigu was sent to conduct an inspection at Novaya Zemlya.
At the exhibition Putin was told by Mikhail Polunin, editor-in-chief of Strana RosAtom TV programme, how scientists and Soviet defence chiefs in the bunker “felt the ground shaking” in the early nuclear tests of the 1940s.
Polunin said: “People [creators of the USSR’s nuclear bombs] worked their hardest, the country was in danger, and finally they succeeded.”
The first Soviet nuclear test was in 1949, and others followed – totalling more than 700 – in the coming decades.
The exhibition taunted the West by highlighting the notorious 1961 50 megaton Tsar Bomb, the most powerful in the history of mankind.
The shock wave from the Tsar Bomb circled the Earth three times, and the nuclear mushroom rose above the stratosphere.
Glass was blown out in houses nearly 800 kilometres away.
The display of the Cold War-era bomb at the giant new Russia exhibition is seen as signalling Russian hostility to the West, defying demands from the West that Putin should not restart nuclear tests.
Some of his closest aides have called for Putin to scare the West over its support for Ukraine with an equivalent jolt to the 30 October 1961 Tsar Bomb test.
“I think this is a correct idea,” said Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of the Kurchatov nuclear institute, at 77 part of a close coterie of ageing longtime friends around Putin.
Others have urged Putin to unleash hypersonic nuclear weapons on Ukraine or the West.
Some 130 nuclear tests were conducted on Novaya Zemlya from September 21, 1955 to October 24, 1990.
These included 88 atmospheric, three underwater and 39 underground.
Later in the Kremlin, Putin received the credentials of a group of new ambassadors including new British envoy Nigel Casey.
He was taunted by the Russian media who asked him how he responded to Putin’s supposed view that the West is “ready to fight with Russia to the last Ukrainian”.
The ambassador replied: “I believe it would be inappropriate for me to make controversial statements at this important government event. So I would prefer not to comment on this today.”
Earlier Casey spoke in Russian with his back to the Kremlin at his official residence.
“I worked here at the UK Embassy in Moscow, Russia, 20 years ago,” he said.
“I’ve been trying to help to improve relations between Great Britain and Russia.
“Now I am back as the new UK Ambassador to Russia.
“Many asked why I wanted to come back in such trying times.
“The answer is simple.
“Maintaining relations with Russian government and the Russian people remains important to the UK, perhaps today more important than ever.
“Decisions taken by Russia matter not only for the UK, but the whole world.
“Few of the issues, currently facing us, are more important than ending the human suffering caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This is why people choose diplomatic service.
“And this is exactly why I am back.”
Read more on the Scottish Sun
It comes just months after fears spread that Putin was poised to fire a “flying Chernobyl missile “that can stay airborne for weeks” as a chilling 71st birthday gift.
And just days later the dictator confirmed a successful test of the weapon of mass destruction.
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