Kremlin: Russia may increase number of Iskander ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad in response to deployment of U.S. division in Poland
Russia may respond to the deployment of a U.S. armored division in Poland by strengthening its Iskander missile system grouping, stated the chairman of the Duma Committee on Defense, the former commander of the Airborne Forces Vladimir Shamanov, as reported by TASS.
“This creates conditions which in the future could allow them to create a certain springboard for attack,” Shamanov said, adding that measures will be taken, including the deployment of additional units of the Russian Armed Forces in the west. “Not only units and subunits, but also destructive weapons. For example, the strengthening of the Iskander missile system grouping, including that in Kaliningrad,” he said.
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that the U.S., using hysteria in Europe caused by the Zapad-2017 exercises, deployed an armored division in Poland. “At the same time, the military equipment left by the 3rd American Armored Division has not disappeared from Poland and the Baltic republics. Thus, contrary to all the statements by NATO and the United States claiming that troops being moved closer to the Russian border is ‘not significant,’ it is now in fact not a brigade, but a mechanized division of the U.S. Armed Forces, and in two hours trained personnel can be transferred from the nearest American base in Europe [Ramstein, Germany],” said an official representative of the agency Igor Konashenkov.