国际英语新闻：Russia says U.S. air force in Poland harms others' security

MOSCOW, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Russia said Thursday the deployment of a U.S. Air Force unit on a Polish air base will harm security of other countries.

"It looks like the old NATO reflex of building up force in detriment of other countries' security," said the Foreign Ministry in a statement.

"This step has to be viewed in the wake of the surfacing of NATO's plan to defend Poland and the Baltic states' aggression on the part of Russia," it said, referring to the WikiLeaks report that NATO mapped out plans in January to protect Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania against any possibly attack from Russia.

U.S. President Barack Obama agreed with his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski Wednesday in Washington to enhance bilateral defense ties in the spirit of the 2008 U.S.-Polish Declaration on Strategic Cooperation.

The declaration includes increased cooperation between air forces of the two countries with the aim of strengthening interoperability as NATO allies through regular joint training exercises, and the establishment of a U.S. air detachment in Poland to support periodic rotation of U.S. military aircraft.

The statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry also mentioned the U.S. Patriot air defense systems deployed in Poland in 2009, saying the "real designation of which is also highly questionable. "

"All of this looks all the more so strange, since the Russia- NATO Council has had an encouraging summit and NATO has made declarations that it does not view Russia as an enemy," it said, referring to the usually dubbed "historic" Lisbon summit between Moscow and Brussels.

Russia will "take notice of the U.S.-Polish plans in the process of implementing our own programs for the construction of armed forces and in the process of working with our allies," the ministry said.

The Kremlin has long been opposing U.S. plans to deploy missile defense units in Eastern Europe, accusing Washington of targeting Russia.