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Post-Soviet Military Alliance Reaffirms Missile Defense Plans

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  • Post-Soviet Military Alliance Reaffirms Missile Defense Plans

    POST-SOVIET MILITARY ALLIANCE REAFFIRMS MISSILE DEFENSE PLANS

    RIA Novosti
    Mikhail Fomichev

    MOSCOW, December 4 (RIA Novosti) - The Collective Security Treaty
    Organization, a Russian-led military alliance of six former Soviet
    republics, plans to build an integrated air and missile defense system,
    the chief of the Russian military's General Staff said on Tuesday.

    "The structure of the CSTO troops will be upgraded and an integrated
    air defense/missile defense system will be built," Col. Gen. Valery
    Gerasimov said during a meeting with foreign military attaches
    in Moscow.

    The CSTO's current members are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
    Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

    Gerasimov provided no timeframe for the project, only saying that a
    "CSTO military committee" is to be set up before the end of the year.

    Moscow has been irked by US plans to deploy missile defense elements
    in Europe. 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.

    Russia proposed a joint missile defense system, an idea that many
    experts both at home and abroad dismiss as unviable and unrealistic.

    Then it demanded "legally binding guarantees" that US/NATO missiles
    would not be targeted at Russia. Since Moscow's proposal received
    a lukewarm response in the West, it has been warning of unspecified
    low-cost "asymmetric measures" to counter the future Western missile
    defense system.

    Nikolai Makarov, Gerasimov's predecessor, has famously said Russia
    does not rule out a preemptive strike against a NATO missile defense
    system in Europe as a last resort.

    Last year, then-President Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to deploy
    Iskander missiles in Russia's westernmost Kaliningrad Region to
    counter the threat posed by the US system.



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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