Following a meeting with President Barack Obama after the G8 summit at Deauville in France, Mr Medvedev said talks on the subject had ended without satisfaction for the Russian delegation. He said: “I’m not satisfied with the American side’s reaction to my proposals and with Nato’s reaction in general.Why? Because we are wasting time. After 2020 [when the shield is designed to be operational] if we do not come to terms, a real arms race will begin.”
The Russian president then made a rather revealing remark because the US has always talked of “defence” rather than “offence” and has never said, at least publicly, at whom its missiles would be aimed.
“When we ask for the name of the countries that the shield is aimed at, we get silence. When we ask if the country has missiles [that could be aimed at Europe], the answer is ‘no’. Now who has those types of missiles [that the missile defence system could work against]? We do. So we can only think that this system is being aimed against us.”
