RUSSIA - July 19 - Sergeyev Hits US Missile Defence Plan.

Security adviser to Pres. Putin and former defence minister Igor Sergeyev says: The start of construction of the firing range "will be the sign of a violation of the ABM Treaty" (referring to the US intention to begin work on the site for a missile defence installation in Alaska next month. The State Department recently notified embassies around the world that upcoming tests "will come into conflict with the ABM Treaty in months, not years". The ABM Treaty, signed in 1972, requires six months of notification before either side can abrogate it, unless the two sides agree. Under the ABM Treaty, each side is permitted one missile defence site as long as it does not protect a country's "entire territory". For Russia, the site is in Moscow; for the US, it is in Grand Forks, North Dakota). Sergeyev says: "The US is seeking to realise unilateral advantages that they have - 'I can destroy you, but you cannot destroy me'". (While Sergeyev has become the most outspoken critic of US plans, FM Igor Ivanov has refrained from such language and stuck to more pragmatic rhetoric. Putin also recently fired the most prominent hawk in the military establishment, Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, who made a name for himself bashing Washington's hopes to build a nuclear shield. Since his summit with Bush in Slovenia last month, Putin has sounded more amenable to compromise. In an interview with American correspondents after returning from Slovenia, he said for the first time that he was open to modifying the ABM Treaty, although he also recapitulated Moscow's long-standing position that it would put multiple warheads on missiles if the US unilaterally broke the treaty).