The speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, said today that Ukrainian strikes against Russia by Western missiles will lead to a world war using nuclear weapons and that Moscow’s response will be tough with more powerful weapons.

Vychislav Volodin said that if the West gives permission for such strikes deep inside Russian territory, then it will lead to a “world war with the use of nuclear weapons”.

“Russia will give a tough response using more powerful weapons” said Volodin, a close aide of President Vladimir Putin who often conveys views in the upper echelons of the Kremlin.

Volodin’s statements are a response to the European Parliament’s decision to allow Kiev to strike Russian targets with Western weapons.

Volodin said that in Moscow it appears that the West has forgotten the enormous sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in World War II.

He also said Europeans should understand that the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, known to some as the Satan II, would take just 3 minutes and 20 seconds to hit Strasbourg.

The war in Ukraine has sparked the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – seen as the time when the two Cold War superpowers came closer than ever to a deliberate nuclear war.