Russia Threatens Poland over U.S. Missile Installation

Was it timed to in reaction to the Georgia occupation? Poland inked a preliminary agreement on Thursday night allowing the US to install 10 interceptor missiles at a base in northern Poland linked to a radar station in the Czech Republic, to go online in 2011 to intercept missiles fired at the US and Europe.

The Irish Times reports that Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsin told the nterfax news agency that

By hosting these [missiles], Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 per cent [certain]. It has become a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has cancelled a September trip to Warsaw that was, ironically, part of a strategy to improve traditionally difficult relations between the two countries.

Polish radio claims that the Kremlin has frozen all contacts with Polish institutions, including a bilateral committee investigating the 1940 Katyn massacre, when the Red Army killed almost 22,000 Polish soldiers.