Putin denounces US missile plan

Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the heart of Europe on May 23 to denounce the Bush administration's plans to deploy a missile defense shield in the region. In his fourth anti-US salvo in as many months, the Russian leader took the floor in Vienna's Hofburg Palace, former seat of Austro-Hungarian emperors, to ask why the US was threatening the peace of central Europe by putting new radars and a silo of missile defense rockets in the Czech Republic and Poland. "What is happening in Europe that is so negative that we need to fill eastern Europe with new forms of weapons?" he asked. "What has happened that has worsened the situation in Europe and demands such actions? Nothing." The Russian leader's uncompromising opposition to the Pentagon's plans to install elements of its missile shield project in central Europe followed a frosty summit last week with EU leaders, unproductive talks with Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Britain's indictment of an ex-KGB officer, Andrei Lugovoy, for the London murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent and fierce critic of Putin. While Putin denounced the US in Vienna, a principal contender to succeed him, Sergei Ivanov, argued that the US radar station planned for the Czech Republic would be able to spy deep into Russia. Ivanov, a deputy prime minister, former defense minister, and, like Putin, a KGB veteran, dismissed the US's insistence that the missile shield elements are to counter Iranian ballistic missiles, and not Russia's. "The radar the US is planning to deploy in the Czech Republic will be capable of scanning air space up to the Ural mountains," he said. Reiterating warnings of retaliation, he added: "A more efficient sword can be found for every shield." Putin's performance in Vienna appeared to be part of a campaign to win over European public opinion against the Pentagon project in Europe. The US is engaged in a parallel effort, dispatching senior officials and officers to Europe and to Russia in recent weeks on a charm offensive.