Russia threatens to target missile defense bases

Telegraph:

Russia has threatened to target two proposed American bases in Europe with its nuclear missiles if the Pentagon pressed ahead with its plans for a missile defence shield.

In an escalation of the Cold War-style threats favoured by President Vladimir Putin, the general in charge of Russia's ballistic arsenal said that he could target the bases in Poland and the Czech Republic that will host the missile-interceptor shield if America insists on building them.

"I do not exclude the missile-defence shield sites in Poland and the Czech Republic being chosen as targets for some of our intercontinental ballistic missiles," said Gen Nikolai Solovtsov.

America insists that its new shield will carry only a few missiles, designed to intercept warheads fired from rogue states, such as Iran.

But Gen Solovtsov dismissed that concept as a lie, claiming that America was determined to surround Russia with its military might.

"If the Americans signed a treaty with us that they would only deploy 10 anti-missile rockets in Poland and one radar in the Czech Republic and will never put anything else there, then we could deal with this," he said. "However they won't sign, they just tell us verbally, 'We won't threaten you'."

He said that believing such verbal assurances in the past had seen Russia encircled by the Western military alliance, Nato.

"Verbally they already told us that when we re-unite Germany there won't be one Nato soldier there. Now where are they?," he said. "They already cheated Russia once."

Gen Solovtsov's remarks follow a year of increasingly bombastic comments about the proposed missile shield.

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Russian paranoia over defensive missiles is still silly. they still can't make a coherent case against defensive missiles to block Iran, and Sen. Solovtsov's rant is no better. It makes no sense. To start with he and the Russians need to come up with a reason why the US would want are need to threaten Russia. I can't imagine any. The only conceivable scenario would involve a Russian threat against the US, but there is no reason for that either. Irrational paranoia is not a basis for negotiation. they need to come up with something better.