Cold War Veterans Blog

Kremlin shelves missile plan in gesture to Obama

DANIEL McLAUGHLIN

Thu, Jan 29, 2009

RUSSIAN MILITARY officials say they have shelved plans to deploy missiles close to the European Union, in what analysts called a gesture of Kremlin goodwill towards new US president Barack Obama.

Following a telephone conversation between Mr Obama and Kremlin counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, an official in the Russian military’s general staff said the decision was a response to the new US leader’s stance on proposals to build a US-run missile defence system in eastern Europe.

The implementation of these plans has been halted because the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland linked to a long-range radar in the Czech Republic, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted the unnamed official as saying.

The Pentagon says those facilities are intended to track and shoot down long-range missiles fired by the likes of Iran and North Korea – what former US president George W Bush called “rogue states”.

Russia believes the system is actually aimed at reducing its own military capability, however, and it has been heartened by Mr Obama’s insistence that he will only build the facilities if they are absolutely necessary, are not prohibitively expensive, and are able to neutralise the threat of long-range missile strikes.

The day after Mr Obama won the US presidential election last November, Mr Medvedev announced that he would station Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea wedged between EU members Poland and Lithuania. “The earlier Russian announcement that they were going to deploy missiles . . . and point them at Nato allies was unwelcome. If that decision has now been rescinded, it is a good step,” said Nato spokesman James Appathurai.

The US ambassador to Nato, Kurt Volker, said that “if true, this would of course be a very positive step.” Yevgeny Volk, of the Heritage Foundation think tank in Moscow, called the announcement “a signal to Obama of Moscow’s goodwill. In response they want a decision not to deploy the missile defence shield in eastern Europe”.

Analysts said Russia hoped Washington would take note of the help that it needs from Moscow in dealing with major international issues.

The US would like to use Russia and its ex-Soviet central Asian allies as a safe supply route to military forces in Afghanistan, and wants Moscow to support tougher sanctions against Iran until it halts its nuclear enrichment programme.