It was a piece of news so obscure and implausible that I missed it when it first surfaced last month. The news was that the Russians are going to put hypersonic nuclear missiles into Nicaragua and terrify the Americans into backing down over Ukraine. Or kill them all if they don’t.

“If American missile systems can nearly reach Moscow from Ukrainian territory, it’s time for Russia to roll out something powerful closer to the American ‘city on a hill’,” said Olga Skabeyeva on the news show on “Rossiya-1,” the most popular Russian TV channel.

The usual crew of panellists hugged themselves with delight at the idea of American cities being blown away. “Objects like the City of New York, a good city, but it would be gone. Completely gone with one rocket,” said one.

Then they rambled on about how the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 had brought the Americans to their senses (bet you didn’t know that the U.S. lost), and how Russian missiles in Nicaragua might bring Americans to their senses again.

Nicaragua has not said it will host Russian nuclear weapons, or indeed Russian weapons of any sort.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega published a decree last month authorizing small numbers of troops from Russia, the United States or other Central American countries to deploy to his country for a limited time “for purposes of training, law enforcement or emergency response.”