
The Russian Embassy's Twitter account has implored media in the UK to stop forecasting nuclear war.
The account tweeted on Saturday:
Surprised to see many people write to us begging not to start a WW3. Dear UK media, please stop the war scare, seri… https://t.co/Je7daN2Bxa— Russian Embassy, UK (@Russian Embassy, UK) 1476530683
The tweet followed tabloid reports that Vladimir Putin had ordered any relatives living abroad to fly home to Russia, to which state broadcaster RT said:
An unconfirmed report in a regional news site appears to be enough for British tabloids to remind readers how ‘Big Bad Vlad’ secretly wants to nuke them.
To be fair, they had a small point, given the image choices of the outlets with regards to the story.
What's he planning? Vladimir Putin 'recalls relatives of officials living abroad' https://t.co/2f7XMuAcq6 https://t.co/x8mmpUNvxb— Daily Star (@Daily Star) 1476273000
Russia orders all officials to fly home any relatives living abroad https://t.co/Py5oaVQ6y6 https://t.co/JXMtH0GGjW— Daily Mail Online (@Daily Mail Online) 1476265915
Regardless, some people have been tweeting the Russian embassy account, urging them to take caution - we're unsure of their sincerity...
@RussianEmbassy NO WAR— Savage (@Savage) 1476678522
...while Louise Mensch got involved...
...alongside a range of other opinions.
Earlier in the week foreign secretary Boris Johnson urged people to demonstrate outside the Russian embassy against airstrikes in Syria after arguing a no-fly zone was near unenforceable should Russia continue to use the airspace for these purposes:
We cannot commit to a no-fly zone unless we are prepared to confront and perhaps shoot down planes or helicopters that violate that zone. We need to think very carefully about the consequences.
One demonstrator answered Mr Johnson's calls, despite being disparaged by passers-by, telling the Telegraph:
I particularly dislike heavy bombardment of residential areas.