Missile plan: Russia warns US
2008-07-09 07:42
Moscow - Russia said on Tuesday it would
use military means if the United States deployed a missile
defence shield close to its borders, a threat analysts said was
aimed at stoking European opposition to the shield.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said Moscow would be forced to use
"military-technical methods" if a US deal on building part of
the shield in the Czech Republic was ratified by parliament.
"If the real deployment of an American strategic missile
defence shield begins close to our borders, then we will be
forced to react not with diplomatic methods, but with
military-technical methods," the Foreign Ministry said.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its www.mid.ru
website that the US missile shield would undermine global
security and Moscow's strategic deterrent. It said Moscow's
proposals to Washington on the shield had been ignored.
Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Moscow was using
typical Cold War rhetoric to discourage the Czech parliament
from ratifying the shield agreement, signed by US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and the Czech foreign minister.
"That is why it is very unspecific but sounds threatening,"
he said. "It is psychological pressure, the same sort that was
used in the 1980s by the Soviet Union, when the United States
deployed cruise missiles in Europe, in an attempt to boost the
anti-missile, anti-US protests."
Russia's United Nations Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the
Foreign Ministry statement did not mean military action but a
change of "strategic posture".
"If you are talking about military action, this of course is
not the case," Churkin said in New York.
Former President Vladimir Putin, who is now prime minister,
said in 2007 that Russia could aim missiles at European
countries if the US missile shield, which Moscow considers a
threat to national security, goes ahead.
Russian generals have threatened to deploy tactical missiles
in neighbouring Belarus and to resume production of short and
medium-range nuclear missiles in response to Washington's
missile defence plans.