This conference's structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms. This conference's format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems. And if my comments seem unduly polemical, pointed or inexact to our colleagues, then I would ask you not to get angry with me. After all, this is only a conference. And I hope that after the first two or three minutes of my speech Mr Teltschik will not turn on the red light over there.

Plans to expand certain elements of the anti-missile defence system to Europe cannot help but disturb us. Who needs the next step of what would be, in this case, an inevitable arms race? I deeply doubt that Europeans themselves do.

Missile weapons with a range of about five to eight thousand kilometres that really pose a threat to Europe do not exist in any of the so-called problem countries. And in the near future and prospects, this will not happen and is not even foreseeable. And any hypothetical launch of, for example, a North Korean rocket to American territory through western Europe obviously contradicts the laws of ballistics. As we say in Russia, it would be like using the right hand to reach the left ear.

"Russia is not an enemy," Bush said, seeking not to inflame a heated exchange of rhetoric between Washington and Moscow. "There needs to be no military response because we're not at war with Russia. ... Russia is not a threat. Nor is the missile defense we're proposing a threat to Russia."

It is sufficient to look at recent history. Did not our country have a peaceful transition to democracy? Indeed, we witnessed a peaceful transformation of the Soviet regime - a peaceful transformation! And what a regime! With what a number of weapons, including nuclear weapons! Why should we start bombing and shooting now at every available opportunity? Is it the case when without the threat of mutual destruction we do not have enough political culture, respect for democratic values and for the law?

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate.

And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasise this - no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race. (my emphasis)

Asked if he anticipated a tense encounter, Bush replied "Could be. I don't think so ... I'll work to see that it's not a tense meeting."

Putin has accused the U.S. of starting a new arms race and said if the U.S. pressed ahead with its plan, Russia would revert to targeting its missiles on Europe as it did during the Cold War. China joined Russia in saying the missile defense plan could touch off a new escalation in nuclear weapons.

The move to put the missile defense shield in former Warsaw Pact nations — purportedly as a defense against a future missile launch from Iran — clearly fanned Putin's anger.

... the missile strategy arises from the kind of Cold War thinking that we should have left behind with, well, the Cold War. Not only does it complicate relations with our allies in Europe, it's also unlikely to be effective in the new kind of war the Bush administration says we are fighting. ...

Technically, of course, the puny system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic doesn't threaten anything in Russia. ...

I'm arguing instead that missile defenses are so old-think. First, Iran's ballistic missile force is hardly the most significant or pressing threat, especially when stacked up against terrorism, a Persian Gulf war, even potential WMD. Second, by the time a workable system is up and running in Europe, even if that is possible, technologies will have changed. Third, "missile defenses" connotes the very kind of passivity that the Bush administration usually decries. We are going to wait for Iran to develop an arsenal of threatening ballistic missiles to threaten Europe? The United States has a policy of preemption, supported by both parties, and it has the means of attack that makes it clear to Iran that if it wanted to lash out with conventional military force, it will be destroyed. ...

We have fanned the flames in Russia, complicated life for NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic, and rewarded Iran. An improvement in our defenses indeed.