Russian Army Chief Warns Poles: If You Want U.S. Shield, Buy Gas Masks

[Purveyor]

MOSCOW, July 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's highest-ranking military officer condemned Monday U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in Europe, and jokingly warned Poles that they might need to prepare themselves by buying gas masks.

When a journalist from Trybuna, a Polish daily, suggested that Poles might need to think about buying warm clothes to prepare for being sent to Siberia in the case of a Russian retaliation to the missile shield project, Army General Yury Baluyevsky, Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said it wasn't warm clothes they would need, but protective equipment.

"The decision to place on Polish soil was taken by the Polish government. It seems to fully realize what kind of retaliation this may lead to... What they really should be concerned about is what will happen in the event that the shield works at all," Baluyevsky said.

"Intercepted missiles will disperse over your territory, and you will need to think not about warm clothes, but about acquiring gas masks and other protective equipment," he said.

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http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070716/69060328.html