'US anti-missile deployment raises mutual destruction threat'

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that a US anti-missile system planned for deployment in eastern Europe would greatly heighten the risk of mutual destruction, Interfax news agency reported.

"The threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction increases many times," Putin was quoted as saying after a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus in Moscow.

The Pentagon says the anti-missile system based partially in the Czech Republic would be for defence only against minor military powers such as Iran and could have no effect against Russia's enormous missile arsenal.

However, Putin said the range of the system, which is designed to shoot down overflying missiles, would extend right to the Ural mountains, covering the European section of Russia.

"These systems will control Russian territory up to the Urals if we do not take counter measures and we will do this," he warned, according to Interfax.

Putin said that despite the row "we will develop relations with all Europe, including the Czech Republic."

Putin had announced on Thursday that he was freezing Moscow's participation in a Soviet-era defence treaty in response to the planned US missile shield, which will require 10 interceptors based in Poland and a radar tracker in the Czech Republic.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation expressed "grave concern" at the move.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained that Russia was applying Cold War logic to the missile defence issue, and said any suggestion the system was directed at Moscow was "ludicrous".