The U.S claim the missile system is meant to defend Europe against rogue states like Iran and not intended to target Moscow's missiles but Putin says he will do anything to protect his country and it's security forces even if it mean's retaliating against NATO.
NATO,
said the missiles could not be used offensively as they don't include
explosives and are designed to simply "punch" targets out of the sky and
have slammed Putin's threats calling it 'unjustified and
irresponsible'.
Putin issued his threat during a news conference Friday after meeting with Greek Prime Minister Aleksis Tsipras in Athens.
"If
yesterday in those areas of Romania people simply didn't know what it
means to be in the cross hairs, then today we will be forced to carry
out certain measures to ensure our security," Putin said.
"Any
threats from Russia are unjustified and irresponsible," said NATO
spokeswoman Oana Lungescu. "Russia knows full well that our Ballistic
Missile Defense system is defensive and neither designed nor directed
against Russia."
"It will be the same
case with Poland," Putin warned. "We will wait until Poland takes
certain action. We won't take any action until we see rockets in areas
that neighbor us."
Military officials in
the U.S are taking Putin's threats seriously, as the Russian president
is one who never goes back on his threats.
"I don't think he wants to get into an armed confrontation with NATO," Military analyst Lt. Col. Rick Francona (ret.) told CNN.
"but
of course Washington has to look at this. He is a very maniacal
personality and we're not quite sure how he's going to react to this."
The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental
military alliance that constitutes a system of collective defence
whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an
attack by any external party. NATO currently has 28 member countries
namely Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, United States,
Greece, Turkey, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary,Poland,
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia,
Slovenia,Albania and Croatia. A Russian retaliation against NATO will
likely cause a World War 3.
Source: CNN
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