“No ease in relations over missile defence, no flexibility arose. We stay in the same positions – the position of the United States is one, the position of the Russian Federation is, unfortunately, different. And a convergence of these positions is not happening,” Medvedev told CNN.
Speaking to the “Fareed Zakaria GPS” programme at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Russian prime minister expressed his concerns over the on-going anti-missile defence program provided by NATO, involving several countries bordering on Russia.
“We clearly understand that if we do not have guarantees, such as the pairing of our programmes, that means that missile defence could also work against the Russian nuclear arsenal. What does this mean? This means that the parity, which we recorded with President Obama by signing the New START treaty (a very important and very helpful treaty, by the way: I think this is the achievement of the so-called reset), [the parity] is being cracked by that, because missile defence is a direct continuation of nuclear offensive capability, combat nuclear weapons,” Medvedev emphasized.
