The planned American missile defense shield is a copper basin that will cover NATO states and pose a threat to neutral European countries, believes Russian Vice Premier Dmitry Rogozin.
The Americans call the deployment of the missile defense system in Europe 'an umbrella'. It's not an umbrella, it's a copper basin that will cover both NATO member countries and neutral states, Rogozin said in an interview with Echo Moskvy radio station. The Russian idiom to get covered by a copper basin is similar to the English expression, to go out of the window. In this context, what is going out of the window is national security.
Rogozin, Moscows outgoing NATO envoy, also underlined that a defense shield should be limited to the territory which the initiator of this shield is responsible for.
But if it crawls into someone elses territory, its no longer a defense, but an offense, noted the Russian deputy PM who is in charge of the countrys defense complex. What kind of defense system is it that spreads to the territory of states that do not want to be controlled by anyone and dont want the range of any missiles to lie within their soil? Rogozin asked.
The planned deployment of the American-NATO defense system in Europe has long been a stumbling block in relations between Moscow and Washington. The Russian side is worried that the system, located close to Russias borders, may pose a threat to its national security as long as the US fails to provide any legally binding guarantees to the contrary.
The very presence of such missile defense systems parameters that are capable of shooting down exactly strategic missiles, and the very placement of these (military) bases, fleet and anti-missile weapons systems in northern seas point at one thing: a clear and practically uncontrollable anti-Russian nature of the missile defense, he said.
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20/01/2012, the RIA Novosti
