Deliveries of weapons to Ukraine will lead to 'global catastrophe': Russian leader

Moscow, Jan 23 Deliveries of "offensive" weapons to Ukraine will lead to a "global catastrophe", Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian State Duma, has said.

"If Washington and NATO countries supply weapons that will be used to strike civilian cities and attempt to seize our territories, as they threaten, this will lead to retaliatory measures using more powerful weapons," Volodin said on Telegram on Sunday.

"Members of the US Congress, the German Bundestag, the National Assembly of France and other European parliaments must realise their responsibility to humanity," he was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.

"With their decisions, Washington and Brussels are leading the world to a terrible war: to a completely different military action from today, when strikes are carried out exclusively on the military and critical infrastructure used by Kiev," Volodin said.

"Given the technological superiority of Russian weapons, foreign politic making such decisions need to understand that this could end in a global tragedy that will destroy their countries," he said.

On Friday, defence leaders from Western countries attended a meeting at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they pledged further military support to Ukraine but failed to iron out divisions on sending battle tanks.

At the meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged defence leaders attending the meeting to "speed up the supply of weapons to Ukraine", the presidential press service reported.