Russia meets missile with missile in row over shield

RUSSIA'S Vladimir Putin yesterday warned that Europe will be turned into a powder keg if the US goes ahead with plans to "stuff" the continent with new weapons such as a proposed missile defence shield.

Raising fears once again of another cold war developing between Washington and Moscow, the president's remarks coincided with the successful test of Russia's sophisticated new multiple-warhead inter-continental ballistic missile across Siberia.

"We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg and to stuff it with new weapons," said Mr Putin. Despite recent agreements to tone down the rhetoric from both sides, he dismissed the logic of the US installing its system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The US says the system is aimed at blocking possible attacks by countries such as North Korea and Iran.

"It creates new and unnecessary risks for the whole system of international and European relations," Mr Putin said, after meeting the Portuguese prime minister, Jose Socrates, in the Kremlin in advance of his country's turn as EU presidency, which starts in July.

The new Russian missile, the RS-24, can evade missile defence systems, boasted Sergei Ivanov, the first deputy prime minister. "So in terms of defence and security Russians can look calmly to the country's future."

Equipped with up to ten independent warheads, the Russian military believes that these are much more difficult to intercept than the earlier generation of comparable weapons.

The missile appears to be the promised hi-tech weapon which Mr Putin first alluded to in February this year. It forms a key part of the promised upgrade to Russia's arsenal, much of which dates from the 80s or earlier.

The growing focus on upgrading military hardware may also have an effect in Britain on whether or not a new generation of missile submarines to replace the Trident fleet is necessary.

Often compared with the challenge of hitting a bullet with a bullet, the Bush administration has already started talks to place ten interceptor missiles and a radar base in Europe, despite resistance both from many European countries and Russia. It believes these could knock out, in flight, a supersonic missile, although the technology is still being developed.

Senior Bush aides such as Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, dismiss as "nonsense" the Kremlin claims that Russia is the real target for the missile shield, arguing that just ten defensive weapons could do little to block the vast Russian armoury anyway.

However, scepticism across Europe to the US plans appears to be growing, with the leader of the Socialist Party in the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, dismissing the US plans as "complete nonsense".

In Moscow for talks to establish links with the pro-Kremlin left of centre Just Russia Party, he scoffed at the alleged American justification. He stressed that although his party, with nearly 220 MEPs, had reached the same conclusion as the Kremlin, they had done so independently of it.

He said that if the US was serious about tackling the treat from countries like Iran, then it should be siting the missile shield in Turkey, not Northern European countries like Poland. The US was intent on creating a split within Europe between those in favour and against the shield, he said.

Mr Ivanov, a Putin ally and hawkish former defence minister, also raised the possibility of Russia revoking another defence treaty yesterday.

Just weeks after Russia announced a moratorium on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, because of the alleged non-compliance of NATO, Mr Ivanov warned the Soviet-era agreement on intermediate weapons was "not effective".

He complained that his country faces a "real threat" to both the south and the east from the deployment of medium and short-range missiles by neighbouring states.

"Scores of countries have appeared that have such missiles while Russia and the US are not allowed to have them," said Mr Ivanov. "In these conditions, it is necessary to provide our troops with modern, high-precision weapons."
MOSCOW 'HAS PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM WITH NATO DEFENCE SYSTEM'

POLAND'S lead negotiator on the planned US missile defence system accused Russia yesterday of revealing a "psychological problem" in opposing it.

The Russians "absolutely know that ten missiles which are not equipped with any kind of warhead cannot do any harm against Russian military might", said Witold Waszczykowski, the deputy foreign minister and top Polish negotiator.

"From a technical point of view, we cannot convince them. They ignore, they neglect, our arguments, and they are saying that any kind of a military installation on the territory of Poland, Czech Republic - that means on the territory of new member NATO states - is not acceptable for them," Mr Waszczykowski said.

"That means they have a psychological problem, a kind of mental problem, to understand that these countries that joined NATO eight years ago, in 1999, are really sovereign, are not part of Soviet or Russian domination any more."

Mr Waszczykowski said that, when US president George Bush visits Poland on 8 June, he should give the Poles some "political feedback" on how seriously to take the threat, and address what the US can do to protect Poland from any Russian retaliation.

He said Warsaw fears the Russians will react by building up their forces and placing weapons on the Polish border - either in their enclave of Kaliningrad or in Belarus, a strong Russian ally.

"We would like to hear from Mr Bush, of course, what are the answers for this kind of changing attitude of Russia."