MOSCOW, February 5 (RIA Novosti) Russia will build a reliable aerospace defense system to effectively counter NATO missile threats, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday.
Rogozin, recently appointed as a deputy prime minister to oversee Russia’s defense industry, said on his Twitter that the global security conference being held in Munich had failed to come to a compromise on creating a European missile defense system.
Rogozin quoted NATO Secretary General Anders Fog Rasmussen as saying that NATO would continue “to develop a missile defense system because we feel a strong responsibility to protect our populations effectively against the missile threat."
“Well, as for us, we also feel responsibility for protecting our population from your missile threat and will create a reliable air and space defense,” Rogozin, who served as Russia’s envoy to NATO before his new appointment, wrote on his Twitter account.
Russia and NATO agreed to cooperate on the so-called European missile shield during the NATO-Russia Council summit in Lisbon in November 2010. NATO insists, however, there should be two independent systems that exchange information, while Russia favors a joint system with full-scale interoperability.
Russia has retained staunch opposition to the planned deployment of U.S. missile defense systems near its borders, claiming they would be a security threat. NATO and the United States insist that the shield would defend NATO members against missiles from North Korea and Iran and would not be directed at Russia.
