Russia will abandon missile plans if US cancels shield

(MOSCOW) - Russia will abandon plans to deploy missiles on the EU's doorstep in Kaliningrad if the US scraps its plans to base part of a missile defence shield in Europe, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.

"We have said through the voice of our president that if the third zone of positioning of the US anti-missile shield is created, one of the measures to neutralise the threats to Russia's security that would inevitably arise will be the deployment of Iskander systems in the Kaliningrad region," he said.

The missiles will be deployed "only if the third zone of positioning really takes shape," Lavrov told reporters.