Moscow will respond to long-range missile strikes with Western weapons deep inside the country, State Duma chair Vyacheslav Volodin has said
The outgoing President Joe Biden is taking the US and the rest of the world down with him by escalating the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, the chairman of the Russian State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, stated on Monday.
Biden has reportedly removed US restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles, according to a New York Times report on Sunday, which described the move as “a significant escalation” that might “provoke a direct response from Moscow.” The White House has made no official statements on the matter.
Volodin said it appears that the elderly Biden, nearing the end of his life, is “dreaming of eternity” and wants to “pull America under with him, and maybe the entire world as well.”
“If this happens, Russia will be forced to respond. The manner of the response will be up to the Ministry of Defense, but there will be one,” he said, adding that this might even include the use of “new weapons systems” that Russia has not previously deployed on Ukrainian territory.
As for the Western weapons in question, they have already been used against Russia, Volodin noted. Their expanded use might cause some additional damage, but “it will not change the situation on the battlefield.”
“It will only worsen the fate and future of Ukraine. And it will finally destroy Russian-American relations,” Volodin predicted.
While Washington has made no official policy announcements, a number of European NATO members and public figures across the West hailed the Times report. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky said on Monday that long-range strikes against Russia were part of his “victory plan” and that “missiles will speak” very soon.
The US and its allies have put in some restrictions on the use of the weapons they supplied to Kiev since 2022, in order to maintain plausible deniability of their involvement in the conflict with Russia. Ukraine has demanded the removal of these limitations since this spring.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in September that any use of Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia would “significantly change the nature of the conflict.”
He noted that Ukraine does not have the capability to use such weapons itself, and would require foreign personnel to create targeting and firing solutions. This, Putin said, would mean that “NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict” with Russia.
