MOSCOW– Prime minister Vladimir Putin told CNN television that Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and “strike forces” if it were shut out of a Western missile shield, underlining a previous warning from President Dmitry Medvedev.
In an interview with Larry King taped on Tuesday, Mr Putin also said the WikiLeaks scandal was “no catastrophe” and could have been deliberately engineered. He also told the United States not to meddle in Russian elections.
Mr Putin said missile threats against Europe must be tackled jointly – a reference to an agreement reached at a November 20th Russia-Nato summit to co-operate on missile defence. Plans are sketchy and Russia has warned it wants an equal role.
If Russia’s proposals are rejected and Western missile defence installations create “additional threats” near its borders, “Russia will have to ensure its own security,” he said.
Russia would “put in place new strike forces . . . against the new threats which will have been created along our borders”, he said, according to a translation in an excerpt on CNN’s website. “New missile, nuclear technologies will be put in place,” he added.
Putin said Russia was not threatening the West, but the remarks underscored the Kremlin’s insistence on maintaining a significant role in a missile defence system and suggested improving relations could turn sour again if agreement is not reached.
In his state of the nation address yesterday, Mr Medvedev warned that a new arms race would erupt if US and Nato offers of co-operation on missile defence failed to produce a concrete agreement within a decade.
“That’s not our choice, we don’t want that to happen. This is no threat on our part,” Mr Putin said. “We’ve been simply saying that this is what all of us expect to happen if we don’t agree on a joint effort there.”
US plans for a missile shield have been a major irritant in its ties with Moscow since the Cold War.
As part of a campaign to reset strained relations with Moscow, President Barack Obama last year scrapped Bush-era plans for a radar and interceptor missiles in eastern Europe that Russia said would be a major threat to its security. – (Reuters)