Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) said the U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe “will monitor Russian territory as far as the Urals Mountains" after Czech President Vaclav Klaus reiterated that the plan is not directed against Russia.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Putin Compares U.S. Missile Shield with Cold War’s Pershings
Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus in the Kremlin on Friday, re-stating Russia’s position on the U.S. offer to deploy missile defense facilities in Czech Republic and Poland. The Russian president said the plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe will raise the risk of “mutual destruction”.
The Russian president re-stated Russia’s concern but underscored that Moscow would respect Prague’s choice. Czech President Vaclav Klaus said at a news conference after talks in the Kremlin that he “strove to explain to Vladimir Putin that from the Czech side this plan is not directed against the Russian Federation.”
But Vladimir Putin said that these systems “will monitor Russian territory as far as the Urals Mountains if we don’t come out with a response, and we will.” He did not elaborate.
“We do not understand what is happening in Europe now that requires such aggressive actions,” the Russian leader said.
Vladimir Putin compared the missile shield plan with the deployment of U.S. Pershing-2 missiles in Western Europe in the early 1980s, which triggered a bitter diplomatic crisis in the final years of the Cold War.
“For the first time, elements of the U.S. strategic nuclear system are appearing on the European continent,” the Russian president told reporters. ‘The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times.”
Mr. Putin spoke a day after threatening to withdraw from a treaty limiting conventional arms in Europe.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 28, 2007
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