U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that veiled threats from Russia toward Ukraine were “reprehensible” and “unacceptable.” Rice said the “reprehensible rhetoric that's coming out of Moscow is unacceptable,” after Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Tuesday that Moscow could aim missiles at Ukraine if it pursued plans to host NATO missile-defense facilities. Such rhetoric “is not helpful to a relationship that has some positive aspects,” Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, citing U.S.-Russian cooperation on Middle East peace, North Korea, and Iran. Rice regretted that “when it comes to issues that come out of the structure of post-Cold War Europe, we get this kind of rhetoric.” Speaking after talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in Moscow, Putin warned that if Ukraine followed other former Soviet states in eastern Europe and hosted missile-defense facilities, Russia would be forced to respond. “It is terrible even to think that in response to this, … Russia cannot theoretically exclude aiming our offensive-missile systems at Ukraine,” Putin said. Last year, the Russian leader threatened to aim missiles at European cities if missile-defense facilities were deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic.
