Source: Global Security Newswire, 18 April
NATO this week objected to the deployment of air-defence units in a Russian exclave that borders two alliance members, Interfax reported (see GSN, April 9).
Unidentified Russian military sources earlier this month told a national newspaper that mobile S-400 systems had been deployed to the Kaliningrad region.
If true, the deployment is understood to be a response to US-NATO plans to field an anti- ballistic missile system in Europe. Moscow says it suspects that future-generation interceptors in the system would secretly be aimed at Russian ICBMs even though Washington and Brussels have repeatedly said the shield is being developed to counter Iranian ballistic missiles.
"NATO has already stressed more than once that such [military response] steps on the part of Russia do not help promote trust and cooperation," alliance information bureau head in Moscow Robert Pszczel said in an interview with Interfax. "We are building an exclusively defensive, not offensive missile defence shield. Russia, for its part, plans to deploy missiles that could pose threats which are out of the question as far as we are concerned."
Russia for more than a year has engaged in talks with the alliance on a possible antimissile deal but has threatened to undertake a military response if no compromise is reached. The Kremlin has said that response could take the form of a nuclear arms build-up and the deployment of short-range missiles and air-defence systems to the Kaliningrad region, which borders Lithuania and Poland.
Regardless of the two sides' differences on missile defence, "there are positive aspects, which show in what direction we should move," Pszczel said.
He cited recent joint NATO-Russia sectoral drills in missile defence and upcoming minister-level talks as positive points of contact on the issue. "There is a need to take advantage of all possible contacts to discuss the continuing disagreements" (Interfax, April 17).
Leaders from Poland and nearby nations on Tuesday discussed their mutual worries about Russian antimissile activities in the Kaliningrad region, Agence France-Presse reported.
"We have to follow closely the changes in regional security because we are witnessing the deployment or announced deployment of new systems by Russia, in Kaliningrad and elsewhere," Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said in Warsaw, where he hosted his Latvian and Estonian equivalents for talks ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago.
Estonian President Toomas Ilves said the NATO missile defence system was focused on dangers emanating from "the south," particularly from Iran. "But missile defence has been used as an excuse to lead to a build-up of both missile and other installations precisely in our own region."
The Estonian leader called on his fellow NATO members not to forget the vulnerable position of the Baltic should Russia move to counteract the missile shield. "We would very much like the allies who have proposed this measure not to leave this area with less security (than before) thanks to an allied proposal to defend all of Europe against a potential Iranian attack."
The United States during the Bush administration had planned to deploy long-range missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic. The Obama White House altered those plans in favour of a missile shield that by 2020 would field interceptors in Poland but also in Romania and on warships home ported in Spain. Turkey also received a long-range radar under the Obama administration's "phased adaptive approach" (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, April 17).