Russia's Foreign Minister has accused Washington of reneging on verbal pledges. Sergey Lavrov says Moscow was assured Russian troops would be permanently posted at anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Lavrov said the Kremlin was 'disappointed' with the development. He said 'our ideas were developing nicely ' until then. “We have received the document and it is a serious setback from what we were initially told. It no longer stipulates the deployment of Russian officers at the bases of the Czech Republic and Poland. It now only talks about occasional visits by the officers, if the governments of these countries give their permission,” he added. RT’s political commentator Peter Lavelle says the U.S. document is a setback to talks on the proposed missile defence system. “Russia sees it as threat to its own security. If Tehran is not the problem, then what is the issue and why are they are putting it there? All the way down to the CFE agreement and other arms control agreements, Russia is going to stick to its proverbial guns. But it looks really bad, a real deadlock,” he said.