October 18, 2006 :: MosNews :: News
A senior Russian general has stated that Russia would view the deployment of U.S. missile defense components in Eastern and Central Europe as a security threat and would take retaliatory measures. According to Yevgeny Buzhinsky, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s international military cooperation department, “the deployment of missile defense near the Russian borders could pose a real threat to our deterrent forces”—that is, Russia’s offensive nuclear arsenal. Buzhinsky, who published his comments yesterday in the Russian daily
Izvestiya, added that “we would view [the deployment] as an unfriendly gesture on behalf of the United States, some eastern European nations, and NATO as a whole. Such actions would require taking adequate retaliatory measures of military and political character.” The Russian general did not elaborate on how Russia would respond to the deployment of U.S. missile defense assets in Poland or the Czech Republic, but warned that “a buildup of military potential near the Russian borders wouldn’t strengthen the European security.”
(Article)
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