Poland deploys first Patriot battery

WARSAW, Poland, May 27 (UPI) -- After heated controversy, Poland has unveiled the first of a host of U.S. Patriot missiles to be stationed in the country, a move that has annoyed Russia but not threatened its security.

The ceremonious deployment, attended also by U.S. officials, marked the first stage of the stationing of a Patriot battery in the town of Morag, just 40 miles from the border with Russia, Poland's communist-era master.

The move comes after a decision by U.S. President Barack Obama last September to scrap a plan by the Bush administration aiming to create a defense shield in Europe with interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic by 2013.

"We regard the deployment of the Patriot system in Poland as an important step increasing our national security and in developing strategic cooperation with the United States," Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said.

"This is not just about the equipment because this one battery is not the be-all and end-all. This is about people -- that American soldiers who will service the battery are standing on Polish soil."

A contingent of 150 U.S troops due to operate the surface-to-air missile system has also been deployed.

Although intended to fend off potential threats from rogue states such as Iran, Russia initially slammed the plan as a serious security threat to its national security.

A leading Russian military politics expert, Pavel Felgengauer told Xinhua news agency that Moscow insisted that all its ex-satellite states remained the zone of Russia's special interests.

"Russians do not like it that the American military infrastructure has been unfolding in the countries of the former Soviet zone of influence," he said. "Moscow wants to have a right of veto there and Moscow wants the West to recognize this right, formally or not."

U.S. officials have said that the first round of Patriot batteries were unarmed.

A revised plan by the current U.S. administration includes the deployment of a new SM-3 anti-missile system in Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic in 2015. Earlier this year, however, Romania announced that it, too, would be the site of 20 missile interceptors and Bulgaria has expressed interest in hosting a base.

This has annoyed Russia, which swiftly threatened to deploy the tactical Iskander missile system in the Black Sea region and beef up its naval base across the border in the Baltics.

Poland has repeatedly said that the Morag base, situated close to Russia's Kaliningrad territory, was chosen for its infrastructure and not on the basis of serving as a hostile launching pad against its neighbor.

Warsaw turned to the United States, forging close military relations after breaking up from the communist bloc in 1989. It joined the NATO alliance 10 years later.