UNITED NATIONS, October 7. /TASS/. It is important for Russia to understand whether Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made his "totally inadequate and absolutely unacceptable" calls about preemptive strikes on Russia with the consent of his Western sponsors, a high-ranking Russian diplomat told the First Committee of the UN General Assembly on Friday.

"Yesterday the Kiev regime made totally inadequate and absolutely unacceptable calls to the NATO countries to carry out a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia. We will certainly monitor the reaction of Kiev’s Western curators, and take it into account," said Konstantin Vorontsov, a deputy director at the Russian Foreign Ministry's department for arms nonproliferation and control.

"It is important to understand whether he made those statements with their knowledge and consent," Vorontsov added.

Earlier, Zelensky urged NATO to carry out what he described as preemptive strikes against Russia. The head of the State Duma’s committee on international affairs, Leonid Slutsky, noted that in this way the Ukrainian president was involving Western countries into nuclear rhetoric and pushing the whole world towards disaster. In turn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that Zelensky's statement about a first strike against Russia was a confirmation of the threats emanating from Kiev and of the need for a special military operation.