"Such an attitude to security issues is at least not encouraging, I should say, without using stronger words," Putin commented at the CIS summit on Friday.

ASHGABAT, October 11. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is rather concerned about US plans for deploying military technologies in space and warns that Russia will take retaliatory measures.

He described this as an extremely dangerous trend: "There are certain capacities on the American side, such as the reusable spacecraft — the space shuttles. They give certain opportunities and advantages in the military sphere, if space is militarized."

Putin promised that "all these will be neutralized and Russia will promptly get the same competences."

"The very fact of deploying some combat systems in near-Earth space is extremely dangerous. It is even worse than intermediate range missiles in Europe. It will further aggravate the global security situation," the Russian leader claimed. "Someday we may have a situation where some attack systems will hover over each country. The time of approach to selected targets will be five, seven, eight minutes. Such systems are not easy to control in space. Technological disruptions, anything is possible."