Other countries should not concern themselves with where Russia deploys weapons on its territory, the Kremlin has said after neighboring Lithuania raised flags over Moscow placing nuclear-capable Iskander missiles near its borders.
Russia had previously touted possible weapons placement in its Baltic Sea exclave as a response to the United States’ missile-shield system in Europe, which Moscow views as a threat.
“The deployment of one weapon or another, the deployment of military units and so forth on Russian territory, is exclusively a sovereign issue for the Russian Federation,” the Reuters news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters.
“It should hardly be cause for anyone to worry,” he added.
The Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite warned earlier on Monday that Russia’s new missile deployment posed a threat to “half of all European countries,” the Associated Press cited her as saying.
The new land-to-land Iskander-M systems are due to assume combat duty in early 2018, the Kommersant business daily reported last December.
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