In Redzikow, northeastern Poland, Polish and American officials today inaugurated a US air defense base equipped with the Aegis system. It is reported by the Polish media as a server Onet or a leaf Republic. According to NATO the base is part of a wider anti-missile shield and can intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. The Kremlin responded by stating that it would take appropriate measures, but did not elaborate.
“I hope this base will never have to be used,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said at the ceremony. According to the PAP agency, President Andrzej Duda, head of the Ministry of Defense Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, and US representatives, including US Ambassador Mark Brzezinski, also attended the opening ceremony. In a speech in connection with the base, Duda spoke of “the end of the Russian sphere of influence” in the region.
“This is an important step for transatlantic security and NATO’s ability to defend itself against the growing threat of ballistic missiles,” former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier. “Ballistic missiles are widely used in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. As a defense alliance, we cannot ignore this threat,” said Stoltenberg, who was replaced at the head of NATO by former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in October. He is to visit Poland today.
The base is located about 150 kilometers from the Russian Kaliningrad region. Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza he called it a key element of NATO’s anti-missile defense system in Europe. “It took a while, but this build proves the geostrategic consistency of the United States,” Sikorski said Tuesday on the network Xwhere he added that the construction of the base was initiated by Republican President George Bush, started by Democrat Barack Obama, continued by Republican Donald Trump and completed by Democratic White House chief Joe Biden.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today, according to the TASS agency, that by placing an air defense system in Poland, the United States is bringing its military infrastructure closer to Russia in an attempt to limit Russia’s military “potential.” “Of course, this will lead to the adoption of appropriate measures to ensure parity,” the Kremlin spokesman said. Peskov did not specify what steps Moscow will take. Moscow expressed its disapproval of building the base as early as 2007, when it was still being planned, Reuters noted.
NATO states that the anti-missile shield is purely defensive. Its other key components are a base in Romania, US destroyers stationed in Spain and an early warning radar in Turkey.
Citing unnamed military sources, Reuters writes that the system located in Poland can currently only be used against missiles fired from the Middle East, and would need to adjust the direction of the radar to detect missiles from Russia as well, which would be a complicated procedure. Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Monday that the scope of the shield needed to be expanded, which Warsaw would discuss with NATO and the US.
According to Polish media, the base in Redzikow was supposed to be ready years ago, but its completion was delayed. In 2008, Poland concluded an agreement with the US on the construction of a defense shield and the deployment of anti-ballistic missiles in Redzikow, writes the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, adding that according to the first plans of the Bush administration, the launchers were to be deployed in Poland and the radar was to be in the Czech Republic. The US later abandoned the project in this form under President Obama.
Source: www.tyden.cz
