Moscow to raise US missile shield at NATO summit

Moscow said Tuesday it plans to discuss improving airspace safety over the Baltic Sea and the risks of a US missile shield in Europe at its summit with NATO this week.

The announcement comes after a string of incidents and near-misses in Baltic Sea airspace fuelled tensions between Moscow and the alliance.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow plans to raise "increasing aviation safety in the Baltic Sea region" when representatives of Russia and NATO convene in Brussels on Wednesday.

Russia's NATO-member Baltic neighbours have accused Moscow of regularly violating their airspace in recent months and flying with switched-off transponders, devices that allow radars to identify planes and prevent collisions.

President Vladimir Putin this month backed a call for all military aircraft flying over the Baltic region to keep their transponders on.

At the summit with NATO, Moscow will also "stress the risks to strategic stability that have appeared as a result of the ongoing construction of the US and NATO anti-missile system in Europe," Zakharova said.

Relations between NATO and Russia have soured since Moscow annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine in March 2014 and eastern European countries are worried that they too might be targets of Russian aggression.

NATO vowed at a summit in Warsaw last week to bolster its eastern flank to counter a resurgent Russia, agreeing to deploy four battalions in Poland and the Baltic states.

Moscow slammed the decision, accusing NATO of working to counter a "non-existent threat."

Putin said last month that Moscow will not be dragged into an arms race by NATO and accused the US-led alliance of skewering the military balance in Europe.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has meanwhile vowed to counter the NATO build-up by sending 2,000 items of new or modernised equipment to the country's western border flanking Baltic nations.

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