Russia capable of destroying US missile shield: general
Pastor Dale Morgan
Russia capable of destroying US missile shield: general*
Mon Mar 5, 11:56 AM ET
Agence France Presse
Russia's bomber force would have no trouble destroying planned US
missile defense sites in Europe, its head said Monday as the country's
security council warned of new policies to counter NATO.
"Since the components of the anti-missile defence system are weakly
protected, all types of our aircraft are capable of using electronic
countermeasures against them and physically destroying them," Interfax
news agency quoted Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov as saying.
The Kremlin has fiercely protested US plans to install an anti-missile
system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Washington insists it would not
be aimed at Russia but designed to counter attacks from countries such
as Iran and North Korea.
Khvorov also said Russia is modernizing its fleet of Tu-160 strategic
bombers, with two updated versions of the aircraft expected to be ready
this year.
Known as Blackjack to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Tu-160
is a highly manoeuvrable supersonic strategic bomber.
Meanwhile the national security council said Russia is to adopt a new
military doctrine in response to the "strengthening" of NATO forces, in
the latest sign of worsening relations between the two sides.
"The analysis of the international situation shows that recourse to
military force is increasingly the policy of leading world states," the
council said in an announcement that the new doctrine was in preparation.
"The military policy of the principal countries devotes more and more
energy to the modernisation of the armed forces," including updating
their weapons technology and strategies, it said.
"Military alliances are strengthening, and especially NATO," the Russian
security council claimed.
"Armed forces are being used above all as a principal instrument for
pursuing the economic and political interests of countries" in the West,
it said.
The council statement echoed hard-hitting speeches by Russian President
Vladimir Putin last month.
In Moscow on February 22 Putin warned, "We are encountering a dangerous
disdain for international law, ambitions to use military force to
achieve personal interests," in what appeared to be a veiled reference
to the United States.
His comments came less than two weeks after he made a full-frontal
assault on US foreign policy in a speech in Munich, saying the United
States had "overstepped its borders in all spheres."