Putin ally issues threat of nuclear strike after arrest warrant issued

Solovyov's threat was made during a broadcast on the state-run Russia-1 channel when he said: "any attempt to implement [the warrant] is a declaration of war".

An arrest warrant was issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Putin's alleged involvement in the abductions of children from Ukraine.

The translated version of Solovyov's reaction to the warrant was posted on Twitter.

His rant began by responding to a statement made by Germany’s Justice Minister, Marco Buschmann, about the ICC’s warrant, when he said that "Germany will be obliged to arrest Putin if he enters German territory and hand him over to the ICC."

Solovyov said in response: "It calls for an immediate nuclear strike on that country! Immediate!

"That's to say, any attempt to do it, to go against the will of the Russian people, which has made itself very clear, must result in a missile strike!"

It follows calls for London to be “turned to dust” after Ukraine said it would use British missiles.

The host could be heard shouting: “Burn in hell!” and “Flames!” as he spoke about a report in The Sun which said Kyiv would use the Storm Shadow missile if the UK was willing to provide it.

Solovyov exploded: “The British press is saying ‘We’ll give them hell! I’m quoting verbatim from their most popular paper The Sun.

“They all regard this as completely fine - ‘Russians can and need to be killed’. They’re saying that constantly.

“There’s one problem with Russians. They won’t give up as easily as that.”

Russia has previously issued warnings to the UK sparking fears of a "nuclear collision" over Britain's plans to send ammunition to Ukraine.

Putin said he would be "forced to react" to any such moves by the UK.

The ICC has now said "there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility" for the crimes.

However, Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations of atrocities during its one-year invasion of Ukraine.