World War 3 fears are growing after the particularly sabre-rattling comments by nationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Mr Zhirinovsky said Russia now possessed, or was preparing, S-600 and S-700 missile defence systems, something he said had set alarm bells ringing in Washington.
He said: “The Americans are scared in general, they are scared that the world’s best air defence system is Russia’s S-300.
“And we have S-400, S-500, S-600, and S-700. We can shut down the whole planet, and no plane will take off.”
His comments on a Russian talkshow sparked applause from a studio audience, while the host laughed and warned against giving away state secrets on air.
Mr Zhirinovsky said America was already on edge after Russia had supplied Syria with S-300 defence systems.
He said: “S-300 has interested them. They had paid no attention whatsoever to some S-300. But now they’re scared, because Israel, the United States’ close ally, is scared — S-300s are nearby.
“Every jet, not just Israeli, every military jet may be destroyed.”
It comes after a Dutch Marine chief warned Russia was attempting to provoke European forces in the Arctic Circle.
General Jeff Mac Mootry warned this week a “Cold War 3.0” was underway near Norway.
He said: “What we see is there is an increasing interest of Russian naval vessels when we exercise.
“For example, when we do launching exercises as part of our ballistic missile defence programme, we see more Russian ships than normally and they come closer to us than in past decades.
“They clearly want to make their presence visible.
“We also see Russian fighters fly closer over our warships just to make their presence known, you could almost call it, in a provocative way.”
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