Medvedev Repeats November Warning

March 21, 2012 • 6:28AM

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reiterated this Tuesday that the Russian military is being seriously re-armed, so as to be able to respond to the U.S.-NATO anti-missile system being built in Europe. In remarks to a Defense Ministry meeting in Moscow, Medvedev stated that "even though the talks are ongoing, we must get ready for a serious rearming of the armed forces so that we could be in a due shape and capable to respond to the missile defence in Europe."

"We are not closing the doors for communication, but we really need to prepare ourselves to the change of situation. We need to be fully armed by 2017-2018 and could answer within the framework of my address made in November last year," he specified.

Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov spoke after the President, reporting that "the Defense Ministry has begun implementing military-technical measures approved by the Russian president." He, also, reiterated at the same time that Russia is still open to dialogue with its foreign partners, and for that reason will be holding an international meeting on missile defense on May 3 and 4th.

LPAC has not yet seen Medvedev's full remarks to today's Defense Ministry meeting; we refer our readers to that most dramatic, November 23rd televised address to the nation which President Medvedev cited. In that address, which the Kremlin then made available with English subtitles, Medvedev reiterated Russia's desire "to build a genuine strategic partnership" with NATO, but announced that because U.S. and NATO appeared to be presenting Russia with a fait accompli, he had given orders for five measures of military preparedness to be taken, should Russia have to defend itself, starting with immediately putting the missile attack early warning radar station in Kaliningrad on combat alert.