“Sarmat will reach Strasbourg in 3 minutes”

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament and a member of Putin’s Security Council, warned Western governments on Thursday, September 19, that allowing Kyiv to attack targets deep inside Russia with long-range weapons supplied by the West could lead to nuclear war.

Volodin was reacting to a vote in the European Parliament in which EU countries were called upon to give Kyiv the necessary consent. The EU MPs passed the resolution on Thursday at a plenary session in Strasbourg with 425 votes in favor, 131 against and 63 abstentions.

The text “calls on member states to immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems supplied to Ukraine against legitimate military targets on Russian territory.”

Volodin reiterated an earlier warning from President Vladimir Putin and condemned the vote, saying there would be a “tough reaction” in Russia if the resolution is implemented.

“If this happens, Russia will respond with tougher weapons. No one should have any illusions about this. The State Duma insists on this,” he wrote on Telegram.

He warned that the Russian RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, known in the West as “Satan II,” could reach Strasbourg, one of the seats of the European Parliament, in just 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

The missile is a fifth-generation intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear warheads over a range of up to 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) and is designed to evade modern air defense systems.

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Sarmat was reportedly tested on February 21, 2023 during US President Joe Biden’s visit to Kyiv, but this test is considered a failure.

In his message, Volodin questioned whether European lawmakers had consulted their citizens before making such decisions and whether they were prepared for the possible consequences of a war in their own homes.

“The European Parliament’s actions are leading us towards a world war with nuclear weapons,” he wrote.

Kyiv has asked its allies to allow it to use donated long-range weapons to attack legitimate military targets deep inside Russian territory, such as the air bases used by Russian planes in their relentless bombing of Ukraine.