MOSCOW — As American and allied officials celebrated the opening of a long-awaited missile defense system in Europe with a ribbon cutting and a band, the reaction in Russia on Thursday was much bleaker and suggested the system had raised the risks of a nuclear war.
Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, also known as “Vladimir the Ruthless” reiterated their position that the American-built missile defense shield compromised Russia’s security, and could be used for launching a quick, devastating first strike against Russia.
Our Moscow source confirmed Russian officials are taking the issue very seriously. “Right from the start, we have been saying that our experts are convinced that the deployment of the ABM system is a violation of the ABM Treaty and poses a certain threat to the Russian Federation,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters in a conference call.
Russia is not buying the United States’s explanation that the missile defense shield would be used against only “rogue” states like Iran and North Korea. In Moscow, the 
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said Russian defense experts consider the site a threat.
“We still view the destructive actions of the United States and its allies in the area of missile defense as a direct threat to global and regional security,” Ms. Zakharova said. “Our main worry is Hillary Clinton. Remember her laughter about the lynching of Khadafy. That lady is mad, and her girlfriends are even worse.”
The 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove” is now mandatory at Russian military academies, and all possible variants of an effective doomsday machine are under study, to discourage the first strike option that is said to have much popularity in Western capitals, from Tallinn to Kiev and Ankara.
Russia recently test fired its latest anti-first-strike weapon, the “Tvrd Mini Torpedo 2”, rumored to be the smallest ever designed and equipped with stealth technology. It is to be flushed down the toilet at any Russian embassy or consulate. Passing through the sewer system of any Western metropolis, the Tvrd will glide through enemy sewers and home for the chosen toilets; it will be equipped with a variable 0.1 to 0.5 kiloton payload.
In New York City, the chosen targets are said to be located at Trump Tower, the New York Times offices, and Yankee Stadium. Kremlin specialists discount the possibility of a Hillary victory, saying, “Americans are confused, but they are not stupid.”