Agence France-Presse,
Moscow: A top Russian general threatened Wednesday to target planned American missile shield sites in Poland and the Czech Republic with ballistic missiles amid icy US-Russia relations over Georgia.
General Nikolai Solovtsov, head of strategic missile forces, said if Washington pushes forward plans to build installations in Central Europe the Kremlin would act to ensure Russia's vast nuclear arsenal remained effective.
“I can't exclude that … the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and other such objects could be chosen as designated targets for some of our inter-continental ballistic missiles,” he said, quoted by Interfax news agency.
Such a move would guarantee Russian missile forces can “fulfil the task of strategic deterrence,” he said.
Washington insists its shield — endorsed by all 26 NATO member states earlier this year — is to fend off potential missile attacks by what it calls “rogue states” such as Iran.
Moscow says the system is part of an effort to encircle Russia and undermine its nuclear deterrent.
The issue has been brought into sharper focus against the backdrop of events in Georgia, whose five-day armed conflict with Moscow has plunged US-Russia relations to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War.
In icy diplomatic exchanges, Washington has accused Russia of seeking to redraw the map by brutally violating another country's territorial integrity.
Russia in turn has accused Washington of orchestrating the conflict by arming Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and threatening the strategic balance in the region by deploying US warships to the Black Sea.
Two weeks after the start of the war, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travelled to Poland to sign a deal on the siting a battery of 10 interceptor missiles there, a move widely seen as a rebuff to Moscow over its incursion into Georgia.
On Wednesday the Czech government approved an agreement on deploying US forces at a powerful radar base planned as part of the shield.
The agreement was the last hurdle before the missile shield plans, which are strongly opposed by Russia, go before the Czech parliament.
While the 10 missile interceptors planned for Poland could not themselves undermine Russia's arsenal, Moscow is troubled by a lack of transparency in the project, General Solovtsov said.
Russian has failed to convince Washington to build a joint shield with Russia and its proposals to place Russian observers at the sites in Central Europe were rebuffed.
Solovtsov said that by the end of the year Russia planned to carry out four strategic missile tests, including a test of the new RS-24, capable of carrying a clutch of independently targetable warheads.
In late August Russia test-fired an intercontinental missile designed to avoid detection by missile-defence systems.
