EU calling for nuclear war – Russia’s top MP

Vyacheslav Volodin has slammed Strasbourg’s call to “lift restrictions” on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons

The European Parliament is calling for nuclear war and should disband, the chairman of the Russian State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, has said.

The Strasbourg-based body adopted a resolution on Thursday calling on the EU to allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with Western-supplied weapons, as well as to continue funding Kiev’s war effort by confiscating Russia’s frozen sovereign assets.

The resolution was adopted with 425 votes in favor, 131 against, and 63 abstentions.

“What the European Parliament is calling for would lead to a world war using nuclear weapons,” Volodin said on Telegram.

“For your information: the flight time of a Sarmat missile to Strasbourg is three minutes and 20 seconds.”

Volodin also reminded the MEPs that Russia was the one that liberated “you and all of Europe” from Nazi Germany in the Second World War, which “it seems you have forgotten” and urged the body to “dissolve itself.”

The EP resolution claimed that “without lifting current restrictions, Ukraine cannot fully exercise its right to self-defense” and lamented that the “insufficient deliveries of ammunition and restrictions on their use risks offsetting the impact of efforts made to date.” 

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Between the deliveries of weapons, equipment, ammunition and financial aid to keep Ukraine on life support, the EU has poured tens of billions of euros into Kiev’s war effort, while sanctioning Russia and seizing its assets at the Euroclear clearinghouse. Meanwhile, the bloc has insisted that none of this makes it a party to the conflict. 

Limitations placed on some long-range weapons systems delivered to Kiev have served to maintain the narrative that the US and its allies are not directly involved. Ukraine has repeatedly used these weapons to target Russian territory anyway, mainly striking civilians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Ukraine doesn’t actually have the capability to use long-range systems itself, but that the targeting information and firing solutions require involvement of NATO military personnel.

If the West “lifts the restrictions,” Putin said, “it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine.” Russia will “make the appropriate decisions” if that happens, the president added.

Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, repeated the message in the UN Security Council a day later, noting that “NATO would become directly involved in military action against a nuclear power. I don’t think I have to explain what consequences that would have.”