Russia: Placement of NATO radar in Romania is ‘clear threat’

A senior official from the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Moscow considers the placement of a NATO anti-missile system on Romanian soil as a "clear threat" to its borders. Alexander Kharchenko was also quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia sees Romania as an outpost of NATO. The US military previously said that the early warning and defense system deployed in Poland and Romania is intended to provide protection from Iran, not Russia. The US and its NATO allies have placed tens of thousands of troops in Poland over the last few months in a step they said is needed to defend the Baltic states from another aggression like the Russian invasion of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.