Russia testing systems enabling it to react in new way to deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in E. Europe - Deputy PM Rogozin
BOCHAROV RUCHEI, Sochi. May 13 (Interfax) - Russia's response to the deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Romania and Poland will be military-technological but inexpensive, says Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
"Surely, there will be a response. A military-technological and a modern response, and an inexpensive one, of which the president said. We are not getting dragged into an arms race, but we have forces and resources, including those currently being tested, which will work not in an old-fashioned way but based on the enemy's vulnerability," Rogozin told journalists when asked about Russia's response to the deployment of U.S. missile defense elements in Romania and Poland.
Russia will develop its resources and allocate the funding "to make it possible to neutralize any threat with the least resources," he said. "As regards the industry, we reported to the president during these days about the most recent work, and tests and changes to the regulations for such tests, which allow us to speed up the creation of a weapon whose technical characteristics are even superior to [those of] the weapon of our probable adversaries," the deputy prime minister said.
The point of the U.S. missile shield is "to deploy interceptor systems as close to us as possible, so that in the event of a counter- or retaliatory strike they can neutralize our forces and resources by simply stopping them from taking off," he said.
"Basically, it is the same nuclear weapon, only in non-nuclear version. And we cannot see it as defense. It is part of the Prompt Global Strike system," Rogozin said.
Russian specialists "have no way of making sure that the silo where the counter-missile weapon will be placed, does not also contain a high-precision offensive weapon," the deputy prime minister said. "This smacks of a gross breach of the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force] Treaty," Rogozin added.