Medvedev warns of new missile deployment

MOSCOW, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia is being "forced" to deploy new weapons as countermeasures to U.S. moves to establish a missile defense shield.

Medvedev criticized the United States heavily in his inaugural State of the Union speech delivered Wednesday before the Russian parliament in Moscow, saying Russia may deploy new Iskander missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad as a response to the Bush administration's moves to establish a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported.

Medvedev also said he's implementing a "new configuration for the military forces of our country" that would abandon plans to dismantle some missiles.

"These are forced measures," the Times reported Medvedev as saying. "We have told (the United States) more than once that we want positive cooperation, we want to act together to combat common threats, that we want to act together. But they, unfortunately, don't want to listen to us."

Without mentioning U.S. President-elect Barack Obama by name, Medvedev said he hoped "the new U.S. administration" would work with Russia.