Russia deploys more rockets
NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Defence Ministry said yesterday that it was placing more nuclear missiles in East Germany in response to the increased deployment of American medium-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe. Soviet troops had already begun manning nuclear weapons in East Germany and Czechoslovakia in January as part of a response to cruise and Pershing 2 missiles.
The official Soviet news agency, Tass, reported briefly in English yesterday that East Berlin and Moscow had agreed on stationing “an additional number of Soviet enhanced-range theatre missile complexes” in East Germany. In Russian, Tass called the weapons “enhancedrange operational technical rocket units.”
Western military experts in Moscow have said that these descriptions best fit the SS22, a new missile with a range of 1000 km.
Tass said that Warsaw Pact nations had been “compelled to adopt retaliatory measures” because of continuing United States deployment, which began in December. It gave no details and did not say when the decision had been taken. Western diplomats said that it could have been discussed in March when the East German Defence
Minister, General Heinz Hoffmann, was in Moscow for talks with his Soviet counterpart, Marshal Dmitry Ustinov, and the Soviet President, Mr Konstantin Chernenko. Moscow has never said how many missiles that it has or plans to have in allied countries.
Tass said yesterday that Warsaw Pact members would respond to further American deployment “strictly within the limits necessary for maintaining the balance of forces and neutralising the concrete threat against us and our allies.” The Soviet Union announced in October that it would take countermeasures once Washington began placing its new missiles in Europe in December.
The late Soviet President, Yuri Andropov, elaborated on that on November 24, soon after Moscow walked out of the Geneva talks on medium-range missiles, saying that work on Soviet bases in Czechoslovakia and East Germany would be stepped up. Soviet officials have said in private that the Kremlin was dismayed with the lack of response in the West to these measures.
The Kremlin’s position since November has been that it will resume talks only if the United States removes its rockets from Europe.
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Press, 16 May 1984, Page 10
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360Russia deploys more rockets Press, 16 May 1984, Page 10
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