Russian President Putin’s Interview with G8 Newspaper Journalists(..)
WALL STREET JOURNAL: … and the more countries there are that want to participate in this system. What does Russia gain by being so fiercely opposed to this system? Are you hoping that Washington will eventually abandon its plans to install an anti-missile defence system or do you have other goals, since Washington has already said that it will not allow Russia to veto this programme?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: (...)
And now I would like to give a definite answer to your question:
what do we want? First of all, we want to be heard. We want our position to be understood. We do not exclude that our American partners might reconsider their decision. We are not imposing anything on anyone. But we are proceeding from common sense and think that everyone else could also use their common sense.
But if this does not take place then we will absolve ourselves from the responsibility of our retaliatory steps because we are not initiating what is certainly growing into a new arms race in Europe. And we want everybody to understand very clearly that
we are not going to bear responsibility for this arms race. For example, when they try to shift this responsibility to us in connection with our efforts to improve our strategic nuclear weapons. We did not initiate the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But what response did we give when we discussed this issue with our American partners? We said that we do not have the resources and desire to establish such a system. But as professionals we both understand that a missile defence system for one side and no such a system for the other creates an illusion of security and increases the possibility of a nuclear conflict.
(...)
At that point our partners said: “there’s nothing wrong, we are not enemies, we are not going to work against one another”.
We would point out that we are simply answering them: “we warned you, we talked about this, you answered us a certain way. So we are going to do what we said we would”. And if they put a missile defence system in Europe — and
we are warning this today — there will be retaliatory measures. We need to ensure our security. And we are not the proponents of this process.
DER SPIEGEL: A short additional question: would you be prepared to consider the possibility of
deploying a similar, Russian missile defence system somewhere near the United States, for example in Cuba?
VLADIMIR PUTIN: You know, I should have talked about this, but you brought it up before me.
We are not planning any such thing and, as is well-known, we just recently dismantled our bases in Cuba. At the same time that the Americans are building new ones in Europe, in Romania and in Bulgaria. We dismantled them because after the fall of the Soviet Union our foreign policy changed a great deal because Russian society itself changed. We do not want a confrontation, we want cooperation. And we do not need bases close to anyone and we are not planning anything of the kind. That is the first thing.
(...)
KOMMERSANT: When I mentioned public opinion in Russia I was referring to the fact that, as I understand it, public opinion in Russia would be strongly opposed to a new arms race after the one the Soviet Union lost.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: (...)
The United States are building a huge and costly missile defence system which will cost dozens and dozens of billions of dollars. We said: “
no, we are not going to be pulled into this race. We will construct systems that will be much cheaper yet effective enough to overcome the missile defence system and therefore maintain the balance of power in the world.” And we are going to proceed this way in the future.
(...)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17855.htm 
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