Posted on 05/29/2007 1:47:08 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Europe would turn the continent into 'a powder keg'.
"We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg and to stuff it with new weapons," Putin told visiting Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates at the Kremlin.
"It creates new and unnecessary risks for the whole system of international and European relations," he told Socrates, whose country takes over the European Union's rotating presidency on July 1.
Russia's Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said it had test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile featuring multiple warheads designed to overcome missile defence systems.
In Minsk, the president of ex-Soviet Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, with whom Putin quarrelled over energy prices in the New Year, urged the Kremlin leader to act jointly with him to counter Washington's plan more effectively.
"We are ready to act jointly with Russia, as long as the Americans are trying to deploy these systems in Europe. I think this is absolutely inadmissible," Belarussian media quoted Lukashenko as telling governors from Russia's Siberian regions.
"We can take appropriate measures ... But it is difficult to do it alone," he said. "At the same time, Russia won't be able to do a thing on its own at the Western border, because Russia has no troops between Moscow and the West."
Russia and Belarus have long planned to form a nebulous "union state" though Moscow has recently cooled to the idea.
The two ex-Soviet republics share an integrated air defence system.
Lukashenko, accused in the West of crushing fundamental rights, criticised Russia in the New Year for increasing gas prices and removing preferential oil tariffs.
But he has since urged Moscow to forget their spat and work for improved ties.
The U.S. says the shield is needed to protect against missile attacks from what it calls rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.
It wants to place elements of the shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, but Russia has strongly opposed the project as a threat to its national security.
German Social Democrat leader Kurt Beck also criticised the planned missile shield on Tuesday, calling in a newspaper editorial for a renewed commitment to global disarmament.
Beck, whose SPD governs in a grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, was backed by other European socialists visiting Moscow, reflecting misgivings about the U.S. plans from left-of-centre parties in Europe.
ALways threats. Typical ruskie/chicom communist mantra. Try to scare the other guy into backing down. If there new missile is so good, they wouldn’t be worried about BMD. Of course they could choose to take part in the program to make sure that it is only used for the stated purpose. Of course we don’t have a reagan in office to call their chit out!
Russia needs to be boxed in before they try to retake the old nations of the USSR.
They also need to be cut off from the Iranian madmen.
Damn Russians just can’t play nice with the West. They always threaten and extort.
Russian natural gas will be the trump card. Puty knows what he’s doing.
And they told Reagan deploying Missles would lead to WWIII.
Putin is a hypocrite. The USA deploying a missile shield is only a problem because Russia is deploying a new ICBM.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1841504/posts
If Putin wasn’t so cozy with the Iranians and other wackos around the globe, this may not even be an issue.
Putin says the missiles and uranium he’s selling Iran are purely for defensive and peaceful purposes.
Putin tried to deep freeze Europe - and committed cyberwar against Estonia - F him.
I thought GWB looked into his eyes and saw his soul, and said that it was good.
What’s the over/under of the West finding itself,in about 10 years,engaged in a life and death form of “cold war” with China *and* Russia?
If the world lasts another 10 years, its a given.
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