Russian Armed Forces Chief of General Staff General Yury Baluyevsky today warned against US plans to deploy missiles in East Europe, saying Russia possessed an appropriate and asymmetric response allowing its intercontinental missiles to penetrate any defence systems.‘‘We will find and have virtually found appropriate and — I would like to emphasise this — asymmetric solutions, which give us grounds to say that our intercontinental ballistic missiles and their warheads will successfully penetrate both existing and nascent missile defence systems that are being developed today and will be developed tomorrow and in the more distant future,’’ said Gen Baluyevsky. His remarks came, as Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov announced today that Russia would spend on defence about $29.6 billion (2.6-2.7per cent of GDP) in 2007. He said after a debate on the military development until 2010, in the State Duma, although the Defence Ministry’s budget would continue to grow, its share of GDP would remain unchanged and would ‘‘not be militarist”.He was referring to President Vladimir Putin’s ‘the state of the nation address’ to joint session of Russian Parliament recently, in which he called for Russian defence spending to be “comparable” to any other nuclear powers.
