6:20am UK, Saturday August 16, 2008

Russia has warned Poland that it is risking an attack - even a nuclear one - by accepting a US missile interceptor base on its soil.

Russia’s Iskander missile attack system

The threat represents Moscow’s strongest language yet on the controversial plan.

US and Polish officials have stuck firmly by their deal, signed on Thursday, for Poland to host a system the US says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations such as Iran.

Moscow is convinced the base is aimed at Russia’s missile force. The deal comes as relations already are strained over the recent fighting between Russia and US-backed Georgia over the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia.

General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces, was quoted as saying: “Poland, by deploying (the system), is exposing itself to a strike - 100%.”

He added, in a reference to the agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons, if they in some way help them”.

Gen Nogovitsyn said that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, according to the Interfax news agency.

President Dmitry Medvedev said the deal “absolutely, clearly demonstrates what we had said earlier - the deployment has the Russian Federation as its target”.

However, speaking at news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he appeared to take a softer position than General Nogovitsyn’s, saying “it is sad news for all who live on this densely populated continent, but it is not dramatic”.

US officials defended the missile defence deal, and have said the timing was not meant to antagonise Russian leaders amid the fighting in Georgia.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a trip to Georgian capital Tblisi, said: “Poland is an independent country. And it’s an ally of the United States.

“And it’s a democratic country, to whose security the United States is committed.

“Russia should welcome having democracies on its border, not threaten them.”

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski said Poland was willing to let Russia inspect the future missile base to give Moscow “tangible proof” that it is not directed against Russia.

Asked about Russian threats against Poland, US Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: “I think the Russian behaviour over the last several days is generally concerning not only to the United States but to all of our European allies.”

Moscow effectively ruled Poland from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.