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General Staff: US stepping up work to deploy missile defense system to Poland by 2018

As a result, all the strategic facilities located in Russia’s European part will become possible targets for cruise missile attacks, General Valery Gerasimov said

© AP Photo/Krzysztof Zatycki

MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. The United States has been stepping up work to deploy its missile defense system to Poland by 2018, Chief of the Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov said at the Sixth Moscow Conference on International Security.

"It (the US missile defense system) has reached its initial operational capability," he pointed out. "The Aegis Ashore land-based ballistic missile defense system has been included into it."

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"In Romania, work has been stepped up aimed at deploying the US missile defense system to Poland by 2018," Gerasimov said adding that the missile defense system issue was one of the reasons for rising tensions in Europe.

According to the Russian general, universal missile launchers have been installed at the Romanian missile defense base, which are capable of launching both interceptor missiles and the Tomahawk cruise missiles. "Such launchers are planned to be deployed to Poland. As a result, all the strategic facilities located in Russia’s European part will become possible targets for cruise missile attacks," Gerasimov pointed out.

He also said that Russia had been taking "the necessary measures to oppose this threat." "But the main thing is that Europe will not become a safer place once the missile defense system is installed," the Russian chief of general staff concluded.

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