EUROPEAN nations are preparing to secretly deploy aircraft and air defence systems on the border with Russia, a leading Russian lawmaker said on Wednesday.

The Tass news agency reported Russian lawmaker Andrey Kartapolov as saying that movements of aircraft from Britain and France had already been recorded.

Several countries from the Nato military alliance have claimed that Russia had violated their airspace and reported incidents involving drones.

Moscow has slammed these accusations as baseless and provocative and possible false flag operations by Ukraine or Nato allies.

Mr Kartapolov, head of the Russian State Duma’s defence committee, told Tass that the Europeans “don’t have the courage to do anything more serious, but we must understand that perhaps under the cover of this chatter, there is a secret deployment and preparation for redeploying aircraft and air defence systems to the border with Russia or Ukraine.”

He said: “We are closely monitoring the situation and have already recorded the movement of a number of aircraft from France and Britain.”

Mr Kartapolov accused European leaders of being “completely irresponsible politicians who don’t care about their own citizens.”

He claimed the only exceptions to this were the leaders of Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia.

“All the rest are EU puppets. Whatever they are told to do in Brussels or London, that’s what they will do,” he said.

Mr Kartapolov said that it was now “absolutely pointless and useless” to talk to European leaders and try to explain anything to them, saying that their “intelligence level is extremely low, and unfortunately, their level of unscrupulousness is unimaginably high.”

Mr Kartapolov remarks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the United Nations general assembly that the world is in “the most destructive arms race in human history.”

Mr Zelensky, who continually pleads for more weapons to fight Russia’s invasion, also claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to expand his war in Europe.

He said weak international institutions, including the UN, haven’t been able to stop wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere, and international law can’t help nations survive.

“Weapons decide who survives,” the Ukrainian leader said. “There are no security guarantees except friends and weapons.”

Mr Zelensky spoke after he met President Donald Trump, who expressed support for Ukraine’s efforts and slammed Russia.

Mr Trump said on Tuesday that he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the US leader’s repeated calls for Kiev to make concessions to end the war that has raged since February 2022.