Putin Ally's Nuclear War Warning Over Ukraine's Long-Range Weapons

Vyacheslav Volodin, a close Putin ally, warned Western governments of nuclear war if Ukraine is allowed to use long-range weapons against Russia. This follows a European Parliament vote urging EU countries to provide these weapons to Kyiv. The conflict escalates tensions reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A close ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Western governments on Thursday that a nuclear war would ensue if they approved Ukraine's use of long-range Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of Putin's Security Council, was responding to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to endorse such measures for Kyiv. "What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons," Volodin wrote on Telegram.

His message, entitled "For those who didn't get it the first time," referenced a recent warning by Putin that the West would be directly fighting Russia if it let Ukraine fire long-range missiles onto Russian territory. The Ukraine war has sparked the most significant confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when the two Cold War superpowers were closest to nuclear war.

NATO's outgoing head, Jens Stoltenberg, told The Times this week that while Putin had declared "many red lines" previously, he has not escalated conflict with the West when they were crossed. Putin's spokesman called this view dangerous and provocative. In a non-binding resolution adopted Thursday, the European Parliament called for EU countries to "immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against legitimate military targets on Russian territory."

Volodin wrote, "If something like this happens, Russia will give a tough response using more powerful weapons. No one should have any illusions about this." He added that the West seemed to have forgotten the Soviet Union's vast sacrifices in World War Two. Volodin mentioned that it would take Russia's RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, known in the West as Satan II, just 3 minutes and 20 seconds to strike Strasbourg, where the European Parliament meets.

(With inputs from agencies.)