Russia will not deploy missiles on the EU's doorstep if the US scraps its defence shield plans in Europe, Moscow's foreign minister has said.
Sergei Lavrov warned that missiles would be sent to the Kaliningrad region "to neutralise the threats to Russia's security".
But they would only be deployed if America's "third zone" of weapon shield positioning "really takes shape", he told reporters.
Sky News foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall said: "The offer is a bit one-sided. No Russian missiles in Kaliningrad in exchange for America abandoning its missile defence plans."
President Dmitry Medvedev announced the move to distribute Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian territory between Poland and Lithuania, on Wednesday.
He said the deployment would counter a US anti-missile system to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic by 2013-2014.
It sounded a warning shot to US President-elect Barack Obama and Washington's allies in central Europe.
