Putin says Romania, Poland may be targeted over new U.S.-led NATO missile bases

For the first time this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a country of the European Union, and used the occasion to warn a couple of former Soviet Bloc nations against siding with the United States in a series of new missile defense deployments.

Putin arrived in Greece Friday to meet with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, mainly to discuss energy and transportation investments between the two nations. But during a news conference, the Russian president took the opportunity to warn Romania and Poland that their decisions to open NATO bases puts them at risk.

Romania opened a defense base in Deveselu this month that houses U.S. Aegis missiles, and Poland plans to do the same in the near future.

"If yesterday people simply did not know what it means to be in the crosshairs in those areas of Romania, then today we will be forced to carry out certain measures to ensure our security," Putin said. "And it will be the same with Poland."

Putin is weary of the purpose of the bases, which U.S. officials say is to guard its European allies against a potential threat from Iran. Moscow, though, believes the bases threaten Russia.

"At the moment, the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be re-armed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won't know," Putin continued.

The warning is the strongest rhetoric yet from Putin regarding the movements and safeguards undertaken by NATO in recent years to set up a strategic defense grid...
  (UPI)
28/5/16
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Related:
 

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