MOSCOW - Russia will take "measures of reprisal" if the United States insisted on deploying a missile shield in central Europe which could threaten Moscow's national security, a foreign ministry spokesman said Monday.
The US missile defense plan will be "a strong action designed to weaken Russia's nuclear deterrent," said Mikhail Kamynin in a foreign ministry statement.
Russia would "have no other choice than to take measures of reprisal," he said.
Russia's head of strategic missile forces, General Nikolai Solovtsov, has threatened to target planned US missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic if Washington ignored Russia's concerns, the Interfax news agency reported.
Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles could target the planned US shield if it was seen to "undermine the Russian nuclear deterrent capability," Solovtsov said.
Washington has insisted the missile shield, which consists of a radar station in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland, is intended to stave off the threat of attacks from what it calls "rogue states."
Earlier reports said the first missile could be put on alert in Poland in 2011 and the deployment could be completed by 2013.
