Global Security Newswire, 8 Apr 2011.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov on Thursday said his government would only participate in a planned NATO missile shield if it had the ability to independently fire interceptors at incoming missiles.

"We insist on only one thing: that we’re an equal part of it," Ivanov said of the antimissile system. "In practical terms, that means our office will sit, for example, in Brussels and agrees on a red-button push to start an antimissile, regardless of whether it starts from Poland, Russia or the U.K.".

Moscow is suspicious the NATO missile shield is secretly aimed at undermining the Russian nuclear deterrent. The two sides agreed at a November summit in Portugal to explore areas for possible missile defense collaboration. A number of rounds of talks have been held in subsequent months and a joint report on the matter is anticipated in June.

Russia and the alliance continue to have markedly different views on what antimissile cooperation should entail. NATO has pushed for for two independent but connected systems that would exchange data on missile threats. The Kremlin, meanwhile, has called for a unified framework in which each side would be responsible for destroying targets flying above specific physical areas.

Washington has said it would never accept a framework in which some NATO member states' missile security is placed in Russian hands. In a March trip to the Russian capital, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed that the two sides exchange missile launch data and establish a collaborative information assessment center.

Last week, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said the offer did not address all of Moscow's concerns.

"This proposal doesn’t change the fact that a missile- defense system with a significant anti-Russian potential will appear on Russia’s borders," Antonov wrote in a April 1 e-mail message. "This will destroy decades of strategic parity and that’s why ideas about cooperation and building trust may well end up only on paper".

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