MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has branded the events underway in the Gaza Strip as a catastrophe.

"What is going on [in the Gaza Strip] is certainly a catastrophe," he said at the combined Direct Line Q&A session and year-end press conference.

Speaking of thousands of women and children being killed in Gaza, the Russian president reiterated that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres "called the present-day Gaza Strip the world’s largest graveyard for children." "This assessment is extremely telling. This is an objective assessment, there is nothing to add," Putin concurred.