Russia to develop offensive arms to balance out American AMD - Putin

Russia will develop its non-nuclear offensive combat systems in order to keep balance with American plans for an anti-missile shield.

The statement was made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on a working visit to the country’s Far East.

“To maintain the power balance while not developing AMD, like the US, we’ll have to develop offensive arms,” – said Putin. “The issues of anti-missile defense and offensive combat systems are interconnected. Even during the cold war the peace was maintained thanks to this balance of power, which includes the correlation of forces between AMD, air defense and offensive arms.”

“If we are not developing AMD, then there’s a threat that when our partners create an umbrella over themselves to protect them against our offensive system, they might feel completely safe. And that might mean that our partners will feel they can do anything they want – the level of aggression in politics and economics will rise right away. The balance will be lost,” he explained.

At the same time, as part of work on the new START, Russia is ready to provide the United States with information on its offensive combat systems in exchange for information on their anti-missile plans.

Putin also noted that the process of negotiations on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty are going well.

According to Russian PM the rules of arms reduction should be transparent and clear to both sides.

Political analyst Vladimir Kozin said that, at the moment, the balance between strategic defensive and strategic offensive weapons is badly needed.

”Russia never deployed ballistic missile defense outside its territory unlike the United States, while at the same time the United States is fielding an extra ballistic missile defense asset, not only in Asia Pacific, but on European soil as well,” he said.