NATO Missile System Global, Mobile, Threat To Russia: Official

RT
October 18, 2012

US missile defense: ‘global, mobile and threatening’ – Russia
Robert Bridge

NATO’s missile defense system presents a threat to Russia’s national security and may trigger the militarization of Europe, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told a NATO Parliamentary Assembly delegation on Thursday.

“This missile defense concept is global and mobile, and it creates unpredictability,” Rogozin said at a meeting with NATO officials at the Federation Council. “That is the real Figaro; Figaro here and Figaro there.”

Rogozin said Moscow is “awaiting explanations from NATO and Washington concerning the real purpose [of the system],” he stressed.

The Deputy Prime Minister remarked on the military defense components “that are being deployed around Norway, the bases in Romania,” which are aimed at intercepting “strategic rockets according to speed, range and altitude characteristics.”

Rogozin then mentioned the US naval group – the core of European missile defense – which “may be deployed in European ports rather far from the Russian territory (such as a base in Spain).”

However, “the same fleet will invariably appear in our northern seas under particular circumstances.”

“The radius of use of these weapons makes them a real threat to us,” Rogozin noted. “The strategic potential of Russia is a guarantee of its sovereignty and independence.”

The US missile defense system, first shelved then repackaged under the Obama administration, has been a thorn in the side of the Russia-US reset. Indeed, Russia has warned that the issue has all the potential to escalate into another arms race.

If new threats to Russia’s strategic potential appear, Russia will simply have to consider the threatening prospect of a militarized Europe.

Rogozin implored the NATO delegation not to push Russia into a position where it will be forced to respond.

“We request you don’t do that,” he stressed. “The Russian response has a…political and diplomatic nature at the moment, but you will not like the technical response we may have to pursue under certain circumstances.”

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Russian Information Agency Novosti
October 18, 2012

Russia Warns of ‘Technical Response’ to NATO Missile Plans

MOSCOW: Russia may deliver a “technical response” to NATO over its plans to deploy a European missile defense program, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday.

“The Russian response [to European missile defense] is currently mostly virtual, political and diplomatic in character, but under certain circumstances we would be forced to deliver a technical response, which I don’t think you’ll like,” Rogozin said at a meeting with NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Moscow. Rogozin holds special responsibility for Russia’s defense industry and until December 2011 served as Russia’s ambassador to NATO.

Russia and NATO agreed on cooperation over European missile defense at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal in 2010. However, talks reached a deadlock over US refusal to give legal guarantees that the system would not be deployed against Russian deterrents. Moscow said it would take unspecified military, technical, and diplomatic measures in response.

Russia said that if no agreement with NATO is reached over the missile defense issue, it would consider deploying Iskander short-range mobile ballistic missile systems in the Kaliningrad exclave.

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