English
Putin: We’ll nuke Poland
 Furious … Vladimir Putin |
RUSSIA threatened to NUKE Poland yesterday as the world faced the prospect of a terrifying new Cold War.
The chilling threat was issued by a top general of Vladimir Putin amid mounting tensions over the war in Georgia.
Meanwhile US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said today that the US will have to re-evaluate the strategic relationship between the superpowers following Russia’s actions in Georgia.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also accused Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of failing to honour a promise to withdraw troops quickly from Georgia under terms of a cease-fire he signed on Saturday.
“I hope this time he’ll keep his word,” Rice said after Medvedev announced the withdrawal would begin tomorrow.
Gen Anatoly Nogovitsy lashed out after Poland agreed to help the US create a “missile shield” over Europe. He said: “Poland is making itself a target. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority.”
Gen Nogovitsy stressed Moscow was ready to use nuclear weapons “against allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them”. Russia is furious Poland has said the US can put an interceptor base and a battery of Patriot missiles on its territory.
“The USA is engaged in an anti-missile defence for its own government, and not for Poland. And Poland, in deploying (elements of the system) opens itself to a military strike. That is 100 per cent,” Gen Nogovitsy was quoted as saying.
“It is written clearly - we will use it in instances against governments that have nuclear weapons, against allies of countries with nuclear weapons, if they somehow enable them.”
The Russian government revamped its national security doctrine in 2000, broadening the range of conflicts in which nuclear weapons could be used.
President Dmitry Medvedev, ruling under the direction of predecessor Mr Putin, said the missile defences were aimed at Russia.
He branded US claims that they are a deterrent against rogue states “a fairy tale”.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said today that Russian “aggression” against Georgia and threats to neighbouring states, such as Poland, were unacceptable.
In a statement, Mr Miliband welcomed Mr Medvedev’s signing of a French-led peace plan to end conflict in Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region and said the priority was to ensure that commitments made in the agreement were “speedily and fully implemented”.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has today said that Russian troops will begin a pullback toward Georgia’s separatist-held region of South Ossetia on Monday.
According to a Kremlin statement, Medvedev told French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a telephone conversation today that Russian army troops will retreat toward the Georgia-South Ossetia border.
The move comes after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili reluctantly signed the plan that calls for Russian troops to pull back, but that also grants them limited patrols inside Georgia.
Mr Medvedev’s spokesman Alexei Pavlov says the president signed the order but did not give further details.
The plan appears to leave some tense issues open to interpretation, including whether Georgia will be able to send troops back into parts of South Ossetia, the separatist republic where massive fighting erupted last week.
Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze suggested Russian military operations, which have seen troops fan out from the South Ossetia into the Georgian heartland, were far from over.
He said Russian soldiers had blown up a bridge, west of the capital Tbilisi, early this afternoon.
“That bridge being gone effectively results in the country losing east-west railway communications. For how long I do not know,” he told reporters.
Russia’s General Staff denied carrying out the bridge attack.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would pull troops out of the conflict zone once additional security arrangements there are put in place. Subscribe=>
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