Moscow sees the proposed missile shield as a security threat and a challenge to its second strike capability in case of a nuclear attack by the US.
As US president Barack Obama embarks on a landmark visit to Russia to "reset" bilateral relations, American plans to deploy a missile shield in Europe remains as an "apple of discord" between the two former cold war rivals.
Obama and Medvedev will end a seven-year hiatus in US-Russian summitry tomorrow, with both declaring their determination to repair a badly damaged relationship.
During Obama's three-day visit, the two leaders are expected to sign a framework accord on reduction of their nuclear weapons and missiles tomorrow, which falls short of a legally binding pact to replace the Cold War-era Soviet-US START-1 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) expiring in December, because of Moscow's linkage with the deployment of an ABM radar in the Czech Republic and 10 killer missiles in Poland.
"Yes, we believe that these topics are interrelated and for understandable reasons: because offensive nuclear capabilities do not exist by themselves, rather they exist together with the means for defending against them, that is anti-missile defence," president Medvedev said in an interview on the eve of Obama's arrival here.
"And if we talk about reduction, then we must understand how it correlates with defending against these capabilities, with what means we have for missile defence," the Russian leader underlined.
On his part, the US president has stressed that the missile shield in Europe, also know as "third ABM site", is not directed against Russia.
In an another interview to Kremlin-critic 'Novaya Gazeta' daily to published tomorrow, Obama said that Washington was seeking to create a missile shield in Europe to protect the US and Europe from Iranian ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads and "was not creating and would not create" a system of defence against a possible attack from Russia.
Moscow sees the proposed missile shield as a security threat and a challenge to its second strike capability in case of a nuclear attack by the US.
"We have repeatedly said, and I have mentioned this several times recently, that we are against the deployment of elements of an anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic," Medvedev underscored.
He, however, welcomed the Obama administration's willingness to discuss this topic unlike the Bush administration's "hard-headed" position on this issue.
Moscow's stand was vindicated by former president Bill Clinton's top diplomat Strobe Talbott, who in an interview to Interfax said the linkage between strategic offensive reductions and regulation of strategic defences is "inextricable" and rooted both in principles of stability and arms control history.
"At some point this will have to be addressed, now that arms control is once again an enterprise both governments treat seriously. How that will be done is unclear. So is the way in which the Central European deployments will be handled," Talbott Talbott was quoted as saying by the agency.
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