Brussels: Nato’s chief on Wednesday advised Russia not to waste its money on countering “an artificial enemy that does not exist”.
The remark by Anders Fogh Rasmussen ahead of a two-day meeting of the alliance foreign ministers in Brussels sought to assuage Russian concerns about Nato’s ballistic missile defense system to be deployed in Europe.
Last month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev opened an early-warning radar station on Russian territory bordering two Nato countries “in a bid to press the United States to back down in a dispute over US plans for a European missile shield,” Russian media reported.
Medvedev said during the visit to the facility in the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea that Moscow was ready to build up its offensive and defensive capabilities if Nato pushed ahead with an anti-missile shield that Russia says is a threat to its security.
However, Rasmussen said that Russia did not have to worry about Nato’s intentions.
“Russia and Nato have a shared interest to protect our populations against a real missile threat, and it would definitely be a waste of valuable money if Russia started to invest heavily in countermeasures against an artificial enemy that does not exist," Rasmussen said.
Nato has insisted that the missile system aimed at warding off attacks.
