Reports: Russia’s foreign minister says new US missile defense plan less threatening

Reports: Russia says new US plan less threatening

MOSCOW — Russian’s new agencies are reporting that the foreign minister says the new U.S. missile defense plan looks less threatening than a Bush-era program scrapped by President Barack Obama.

Sergey Lavrov’s remarks Wednesday were the latest positive Russian reaction to Obama’s decision to shelve plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia had claimed those plans were aimed to weaken its nuclear deterrent.

Obama has instead turned to a plan for shorter-range anti-missile weapons, some of them ship-based.

Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying preliminary assessments indicate Obama’s plan “does not create the risks” that the old one would have, and could prompt dialogue.