TURKU (Sputnik) – Russia has repeatedly expressed its concern about the creation of a US-designed ballistic missile defense system in Europe, approved at the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon. Poland and Romania joined Spain and Turkey in agreeing to deploy elements of the system on their territories.
"Now they are saying about the deployment of the same system of radars and interceptors in Poland, that is the Baltic Sea region. What are we to do? How are we to stop these threats? We will have to act accordingly," Putin said alongside his Finnish counterpart.
Putin addressed a series of confirmations by NATO allies, Canada being the latest this week, to each contribute 4,000 troops in Eastern Europe.
The United States’ Aegis Ashore system is expected to become operational in Poland in 2018. It is planned to form part of the European missile shield and be armed with land-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors.
In recent years, the United States has taken significant steps to deploy ballistic missile defense systems throughout Europe under the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA). The Aegis Ashore facility in Poland marks the third phase of the EPAA.
