Russian says shield makes Poland target

A top Russian general said Friday that hosting a U.S. missile shield makes Poland a Kremlin military target, even as Moscow lowered its saber by agreeing to a cease-fire with the former Soviet republic of Georgia in their nations’ weeklong war.

According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said Poland’s decision could even lead to a nuclear attack on the Kremlin’s former Warsaw Pact ally. Russia’s president also denounced the U.S.-Poland deal as an anti-Russia act, though he stopped short of threatening Warsaw.

“By hosting [U.S. anti-missile missiles], Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 percent,” said Gen. Nogovitsyn, the Russian military’s deputy chief of staff. “It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority.”

He added that Russia’s military planning allows the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them,” which he said would include helping with strategic-defense systems.

While the general was issuing his threats, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice persuaded a reluctant Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to sign a cease-fire with Russia, though the deal had several details that may become the basis for Georgia to lose parts of its territory.

She said that “with the signing of this accord, all Russian troops, and any paramilitary and irregular troops that entered with them must leave immediately.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also agreed to the cease-fire, according to a State Department official speaking to reporters on the plane taking Miss Rice back to the U.S. from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. “He said that Russia will implement the agreement faithfully,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

While standing next to Miss Rice in Tbilisi after a five-hour meeting, an emotional Mr. Saakashvili denounced the Russians as “21st-century barbarians” and accused the West of all but inviting Kremlin aggression against his country.

“Who invited the trouble here? Who invited this arrogance here? Who invited these innocent deaths here?” Mr. Saakashvili asked, going on to answer his own question: “Not only those people who perpetrate them are responsible, but also those people who failed to stop it.”

Russian forces were camped a mere 25 miles from the Tbilisi news conference.

The cease-fire document sets out no penalties or deadlines. It also contains concessions to Russia, including letting the Kremlin put peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia - both regions of Georgia that have declared their independence from Tbilisi. Georgia tried earlier this month to reassert its sovereignty in those regions, and the overwhelming Russian invasion followed.

Russian troops allowed some humanitarian supplies into the strategic city of Gori, in the center of Georgia and not in either disputed territory, but otherwise continued their blockade. Russian withdrawal from Gori would be a major sign that Moscow is not trying to annex Georgia or topple its pro-American government. By holding Gori, Russia holds the small country’s only major east-west highway and effectively slices it in half.

Mr. Saakashvili said Georgia would not accept its dismemberment.

“We will rebuild. We want them out. I want the world to know, never, ever will Georgia reconcile with occupation of even one square kilometer of its sovereign territory. Never, ever,” he said.

In his Saturday radio address, which the White House released Friday, President Bush called Russia’s actions “completely unacceptable.”

Story Continues →