Wednesday, December 24, 2008
MOSCOW: Russia may place nuclear-capable Topol missiles in neighbouring Belarus as a response to a controversial US missile shield in eastern Europe, a Russian defence ministry source was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
’If the United States continues to bring elements of its strategic forces closer to Russia’s borders, including missile-defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, which are aimed at the reduction of our nuclear deterrent, mobile Topol complexes could be placed in Belarus,’ the source told Interfax news agency.
A defence ministry spokesman contacted by AFP declined to comment on the report. Returning nuclear weapons to Belarus would be a major turnaround for Moscow, which removed its last nuclear missiles from the ex-Soviet republic in 1996, several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The report came one day after Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko met his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow and reached a deal on the deliveries of Russian gas to Belarus.
Russia has reacted angrily to US plans to place elements of a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, threatening counter-measures, including the deployment of Iskander short-range missiles in its western Kaliningrad region.
A top Russian official reiterated the threat on Tuesday, stressing that the Iskanders would not be deployed in Kaliningrad which borders the European Union if the United States backed down on its missile shield.
’If there will be no third position area of missile defence, there will be no Iskanders in Kaliningrad,’ Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said in an interview published in the Izvestia daily.
’We are in no way preparing to get caught up in an arms race,’ he added. The term ‘third position area’ refers to US plans for an anti-missile radar facility in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland. The first two parts of the missile shield are in the US states of California and Alaska.
The United States says its missile shield is not a threat to Russia and is instead meant to protect against ‘rogue states’ like Iran.
Meanwhile, the Russian military will commission more than 70 strategic nuclear missiles in the next three years, Interfax news agency quoted the deputy head of the military-industrial committee as saying on Monday.
“More than 70 strategic missiles will be bought and delivered to troops in the next three years, more than 30 short-range Iskander missiles and a large number of booster rockets and aircraft,” said Vladislav Putilin, whose department is in charge of weapons industries.
He added that the military will also acquire 48 combat jets, six spy drones, more than 60 military helicopters, 14 navy vessels and nearly 300 tanks. The arms-procurement order for 2009-2011 will cost nearly four trillion rubles (100 billion euros, 140 billion dollars), he said. The announcement comes after last week’s announcement that Russia’s weapons arsenal is set to be bolstered by the arrival of new missiles with a range of 10,000-km on December 24.
Russia’s military is seeking to phase in newer weapons to replace Soviet-era war horses like the Stiletto and shake up the country’s armed forces to make them more dynamic.
Meanwhile last week a Russian general said Moscow is ready to abandon plans for a wholesale renewal of its nuclear missile arsenal if the United States stops deployment of a controversial missile shield. Moscow describes US plans — spearheaded by outgoing US President George W Bush — to deploy an anti-missile radar facility in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland as a threat to its national security.
However the United States insists its missile shield is not directed against Russia and is instead meant to protect against “rogue states.”
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link to www.thenews.com.pk]
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