"If the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic take such a step ... the Strategic Missile Forces will be capable of targeting these facilities if a relevant decision is made," Solovtsov told reporters in Moscow, asserting the U.S. plan could upset strategic balance of power in the region.
Solovtsov spoke as Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and his Polish counterpart, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, both in Warsaw, suggested they were ready to move forward with a plan by Washington to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic.
Can you imagine that all the Warsaw Pact nations fled the loving embrace of the Soviet Union as soon as they weren't compelled to be members? And that then the Soviet Union itself fell apart?
The Russians need to stop pining for the days of their communist past.
UPDATE: The Polish prime minister is not so eager for the Bear's embrace:
"To make it clear — this is not about Russian security; these installations do not in any way threaten Russia," Kaczynski said on state Radio 1. "It's about the status of Poland, and Russian hopes that the zone, in other words Poland, will once again find itself ... in the Russian sphere of influence."
"From the moment the missile bases are installed here, the chances of that happening, for at least decades to come, very much declines," he said.
And note that the article understates the past by mentioning only the 45 years of Soviet occupation after World War II. No mention is made of the absorption of Poland for a couple centuries prior to World War I.
