Russia Puts US Base In Poland On Priority List For "Potential Elimination"

A US ballistic missile defence base in Poland, which may 'lead to an increase in the overall level of nuclear danger', is now on Russia's target list for possible destruction is needed, Moscow confirmed.

The new base in the town of Redzikowo near the Baltic Sea, part of the broader NATO shield against Russia, was opened last week. 

"This is another frankly provocative step in a series of deeply destabilising actions by the Americans and their allies in the North Atlantic Alliance in the strategic sphere," Reuters reported quoting Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

? #Zakharova: The so-called US missile defence base (not really) in Poland has been put on the list of priority targets for potential elimination.

The nature and level of threats posed by these Western military facilities are well-known & taken into account. pic.twitter.com/qzDqvTKXox

"This leads to undermining strategic stability, increasing strategic risks and, as a result, to an increase in the overall level of nuclear danger."

NATO took control of the Aegis Ashore Missile Defence System (AAMDS) amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine which completed its 1,000 days. 

"I am very glad that we are officially opening this base which will, just like the United States military, defend freedom and security in the world, Polish President Andrzej Duda said.

Poland joined the alliance in 1999. Sweden is the latest entrant in the alliance, it joined NATO this year. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - the three Baltic states - are also part of NATO and share a land border with Russia.

On the Ukraine front, the US has allowed Kyiv to use long-range ATACMS to strike deep into Russia, a restriction which was earlier placed by the White House to avoid any escalation in the war. UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles were used by Ukraine for the first time against Russia. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow has the right to strike military targets of countries whose weapons are used by Ukraine to hit Russian territory. A veiled warning to London and Washington.

Russia's NATO Expansion Narrative

Russia sees NATO's eastward expansion as a threat to its security and a violation of a so-called promise the US made to the USSR that the military alliance would not move further east in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to Germany's incorporation into NATO in 1990 and then US Secretary of State, James Baker, had told Gorbachev that it would not move beyond the inner German border, but Washington retreated from its position, a report from Chatham House said. 

One of the basis of the claim is then-German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher's speech in 1990, where he said, "No matter what happens in the Warsaw Pact countries, there will be no expansion of NATO territory to the east, that is, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union." This was made before the collapse of the USSR and the creation of independent nations in Eastern Europe.

Even Gorbachev in some interviews agreed about the existence of the verbal "agreement" but also refuted it in some. The narrative has been actively used by the Russians to justify actions in Ukraine, claiming that the US has moved further, threatening national security.

But, in 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron, at the 2018 St Petersburg International Economic Forum, said "I think that the mistake that was made in the last 20 years was that we in NATO failed to fully comply with all the obligations we had taken on, and this caused certain fears, quite reasonable ones. And we did not have the trust that Russia rightfully expected."

After the Russia-Ukraine war, many scholars have argued that the expansion of NATO has been a trigger to the war.