Agence France-Presse, Ukraine’s pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko said April 12 that his country was not considering hosting any elements of a U.S. anti-missile shield planned for Eastern Europe.
“The question has not been put to us, and Ukraine does not intend to examine it,” he told journalists during a televised press conference in Kiev.
The U.S. has asked the Czech Republic and Poland to host a radar system and interceptor rockets, respectively. Russia has sharply criticized the plan.
The level of Ukraine’s integration with the NATO alliance is one of the key issues fueling a political standoff between pro-Russian and pro-Western politicians in the ex-Soviet republic.
