MOSCOW, Sept 19 (Askume) – A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Western governments on Thursday that they risked nuclear war if Ukraine was allowed to use Western long-range weapons deep in the Russian interior .
Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of Putin’s Security Council, was reacting to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to impose such sanctions on Kiev.
Volodin wrote on Telegram: “The European Parliament demands the use of nuclear weapons to start a world war.”
His message was titled “For those who don’t understand the first time” – an apparent reference to Putin’s warning last week that Ukraine would launch long-range missiles into Russian territory and that the West would go to war with Russia directly.
The war in Ukraine sparked the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and was seen as the closest the two superpowers came to deliberately starting a nuclear war during the Cold War.
Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told The Times this week that Kremlin leaders had previously announced “several red lines” but had not escalated a conflict with the West when crossing them. Putin’s spokesman said his comments were dangerous and provocative.
In a non-binding resolution adopted on Thursday, the European Parliament called on EU states to “immediately lift the ban on the use of Western weapons systems supplied to Ukraine to attack legitimate military targets on Russian territory”.
“If something like this happens, Russia will respond strongly with more powerful weapons. No one should have any illusions about that,” Volodin wrote.
He said Europeans should understand that Russia’s RS-28 “Sarmat” intercontinental ballistic missile (known in the West as “Satan II”) can hit Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is meeting, in just three minutes and takes 20 seconds to reach the summit.
