U.S. missile defense threatens to nullify Russian nuclear potential – Putin

MOSCOW. Dec 20 (Interfax) – Russia’s disregard of U.S. missile defense deployment may damage the national nuclear missile potential, President Vladimir Putin told a press conference on Thursday.

“As we have said before, the creation of such systems by our partners is a threat. It may nullify our nuclear missile potential unless we do something,” he said.

The global strategic balance, which has been protecting mankind from large military conflicts since the WWII, may be disturbed, Putin said.

He recalled that the term “reset” had been suggested by the American partners and noted there was actually nothing to reset because Russia and the U.S. had had a normal relationship.

“The relations deteriorated relatively because we took a different position on Iraq. That was when the problems started. I would like to note that it was not even our initiative. Our position was prompted, to a degree, by the policy of European partners of the United States – France and Germany – who did not support their (U.S.) steps as regards Iraq either,” he said.

There is no answer to the question who was right, Putin remarked. “They say, ‘Veni, vidi, vici’. Saddam was hanged but the country broke up. Kurdistan is practically an independent actor. There have been so many victims! More than in the entire period of Saddam Hussein’s rule. Was the solution of the Hussein problem adequate or not? It is hard for me to say,” the president said.

He said that such methods were at least dubious.

Missile defense was the second problem that had popped up in Russia-U.S. relations, Putin said.

Plans to deploy missile defense sites in Europe, in particular, in Poland and the Czech Republic, were announced in 2007. The United States agreed to deploy interceptor missiles in Romania in 2010. The network will become fully operational by 2018.

Russia is extremely concerned about the U.S. plans: the deployment of U.S. missile defense infrastructure close to Russian borders may limit the country’s defensive and offensive capabilities. Hence, Moscow insists that the United States and NATO must give legal guarantees that the system would not be targeted against Russia. The guarantees have been refused.

Then President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces on November 23, 2011, to commission a missile attack warning radar station in Kaliningrad and to enhance protection of the strategic nuclear forces.

He also said that strategic ballistic missiles would be equipped to pass through missile defense and the Russian Armed Forces would develop methods of destroying data and control systems of the missile defense network.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said in November 2012 that the United States could not give Russia written guarantees because of the unpredictability of threats coming from Iran.