Russian Missile Test Sends Message

Russia test-launched two ballistic missiles Friday, sending a sharp warning to the Bush administration even as Moscow and Washington are warily feeling out their new relationship.

The tests came amid bitter Russian opposition to U.S. plans for a national missile defense system and toughening rhetoric from both nations’ top military and security officials.

The strident tone has at times recalled the Cold War, and Russian officials warn that the missile shield may trigger a new arms race--including missiles in space. But analysts agree that Russia couldn’t afford such a race.

Under President Vladimir V. Putin, Russia has sought a speedy reduction in nuclear missiles, mainly because of its difficulties in funding its decaying military machine.

Putin has called for a U.S.-Russia agreement to reduce each side’s nuclear warheads from 6,000 to less than 1,500. Under the START II arms control agreement, which has been ratified but not implemented, each side has to cut back to between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads by 2007.

Friday’s missile launches came as officials on both sides gear up for the nations’ first top-level meeting since President Bush took office. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will meet Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov in Cairo next weekend.

The test launches of the ballistic missiles--from a silo in Plesetsk in northwestern Russia and a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea--underscored Russian opposition to the missile shield.

Col. Gen. Valery L. Manilov, first deputy chief of the armed forces’ general staff, said the tests proved that Russia was capable of thwarting any missile shield.

Gen. Leonid G. Ivashov, the chief of the Defense Ministry’s international cooperation department, warned Friday that if America builds a missile shield, “we shall find an adequate reply.”

“We have been watching a concerted information war on Russia’s prestige and its international position,” Ivashov said. “The rhetoric of the new administration officials is taking on anti-Russian overtones and smacks of Cold War rhetoric,” he complained.

The Russians have promised to provide details next week of their proposal for a European missile shield.

Tensions with the United States grew Wednesday after Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Moscow of being “part of the problem” of weapons proliferation.

He claimed that the Russian government turned a blind eye to companies selling military technology to Iran, North Korea and India that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Russian generals denied the claims.

Dmitri V. Trenin, a military analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, said Russia launched the missiles to show Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration they could not ignore Russian concerns.

“A lot of people in Russia--especially among the top brass and in state security bodies--feel angry and embittered over the fact that people in the new U.S. administration act and talk as if they have already discarded Russia. There are things that are even worse than enmity and hostility. There is oblivion, and there is being ignored,” Trenin said.

“There is a huge and ever-growing gap of mistrust between Russia and America, as far as issues of nuclear technologies are concerned.”