Putin cautions US on missile plan

President Vladimir Putin warned US officials today to back off on their plan to install missile defences in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.

The Russian president, addressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, appeared to mock the US missile defence plan, which is at the centre of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former Cold War adversaries.

Mr Putin said: "Of course we can sometime in the future decide that some anti-missile defence system should be established somewhere on the moon.

"But before we reach such arrangements we will lose the opportunity for fixing some particular arrangements between us."