MOSCOW. Aug 19 (Interfax) - Russia will take the necessary military-technical measures in response to the European missile defense system, regardless of the course of its negotiations with the United States and NATO, Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said.
"The more we achieve with political and diplomatic measures, the lesser should be our military-technical response. The less we achieve through diplomacy, the greater must be our military-technical response. In any case, there will be a military-technical response," he said on the Rossiya-24 television channel.
On October 20-21, NATO defense ministers are due to adopt a military command plan for the European missile defense system.
"If we see that this plan is sharpened in a way that the Russian Federation will not see its place in the missile defense architecture being created, then, of course, we will make important conclusions of our own," Rogozin said.
Russia will continue consultations on missile defense with its European partners as early as September. Russia is being very pragmatic towards missile defense talks, but these have been difficult, he said.
"Instead of dramatizing the situation, one needs to look at it objectively - we are dealing with very difficult partners, who are extremely unpredictable, and in any case the Russian Federation must rely here not only on its diplomatic potential but also on its brains and brawns," Rogozin said.