Press TV reports: Russia to deploy Iskander-Ms by 2015

Missile brigades in western Russia will be armed with Iskander-M missile system by 2015 to counter a planned US missile shield in Europe.

“By 2015, the Iskander system will be put in service with five missile brigades, primarily near Russia’s western border and in the Kaliningrad Region,” a source in the Russian Defense Ministry was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying on Friday.

The decision for deployment of the system, equipped with precision-guided tactical SS-26 Stone missiles, was announced by President Dmitry Medvedev during his first state-of-the-nation address on Wednesday.

The system is to be placed in the enclave of Kaliningrad near Poland which will host 10 missile interceptors as part of Washington’s planned defense missile shield.

Moscow has repeatedly opposed to the US’ plan saying it constituted a threat to its security besides looming large as a ‘nuclear deterrent’.

The missiles made for a “cheap and effective” precaution and were sure to ‘nullify’ possible threats posed by the shield, said the Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin after the presidential address.

The decision aims to push Washington into reconsidering the move as the entire Polish territory falls within the range of the Iskander-Ms. The system is also capable of targeting expanses of the Czech Republic which is slated for hosting a tracking radar as part of the shield.

The source added that the Iskander system will be also stationed in Belarus in line with Russia’s ‘asymmetric’ copying of the shield.
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Note: For more info on this system check here. I would only add here that I have no sympathy for the Poles or the Czechs whatsoever – they did this to themselves by agreeing to be the sniveling sycophants of the US Empire. As any idiot knows, there is no missile threat from Iran for Europe and there was no missile threat from Russia either until the US Neocons decided to deploy the American radar/missile system. Now there is, and there is precious little anyone can do against the Russian response as the combined capabilities of the Iskander-M SRBM and Topol-M ICBM provide Russia with a combination of short-range and long-range missile systems fully capable of evading and defeating any existing or forseeable Western ABM system.