MOSCOW. Oct 24 (Interfax) - The U.S. missile defense plans will create significant risks for Russia by 2018-2020, and Moscow has to take this into account in its military planning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"If the missile defense plans that the United States has announced are put into practice exactly as they should be, while the U.S. Congress has banned digressing from them either leftward or rightward, they will pose tangible risks to our strategic nuclear forces in their third and fourth phase around 2018-2020. We just have no right to fail to take this into account in our military planning," Lavrov said in an interview with the radio stations Echo Moskvy, the Voice of Russia, and Radio Rossii on Friday.