It has been reported that the Russian state TV propagandists have declared that World War III had already started after Ukrainian forces managed to sink Vladimir Putin's Black Sea flagship, the Moskva. 

The Kremlin’s main propaganda mouthpiece went off on a rant last night after the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet was taken out.

The flagship sank while being towed to port yesterday after suffering heavy damage under circumstances that remained in dispute, Daily Mail reports.

Kyiv said it was struck by two Neptune cruise missiles fired by a coastal battery, which struck the port side of the vessel, causing it to roll over.

Olga Skabeyeva, one of Putin’s leading propagandists said Western support for Ukraine amounted to direct conflict with Russia.

She said, "What it’s escalated into can safely be called World War Three. That’s entirely for sure.

 
"Now we’re definitely fighting against Nato infrastructure, if not Nato itself. We need to recognise that.”
 
Military commentator Dmitry Drozdenko said on separate state-run Channel 1: “In actual fact a full-scale multi-level war is underway with the collective West. And the West has long been preparing for the war."

Anchor Olesya Loseva, host of Vremya Pokazhet, told viewers that the West was now supplying "zillions of weapons” to Ukraine.

She claimed Ukraine was doing the West’s bidding by carrying out "yet more provocations, bloody, horrible, completely unthinkable.”

These will “force people to shudder once again and say that Russia Is a country which is unworthy of even being on the world map and that all Russians should simply be wiped off the face of the earth”.

Skabeyeva also claimed that Ukrainians were delighted to see Russian troops in their country.

She said, “for some reason ordinary Ukrainians themselves aren't noticing any genocide.

“In the Kharkiv region, they're welcoming our soldiers like real liberators.

“People are coming out with Russian tricolours onto the streets where our military kit is.

“The people of Kharkiv are accusing not the Russian army of genocide, but the Ukrainian armed forces.”