
A DIFFERENT VIEW ON NMD: IT COULD HELP RUSSIA. Former FSB
Director Nikolai Kovalev, who now serves on the Duma Defense
Committee, told Interfax on 26 February that he believes that
the U.S. intention to create an NMD system could actually
serve the interests of Russia's strategic security. He said
that American efforts to build NMD would be prohibitively
expensive and would only succeed in alienating European
governments from Washington. Meanwhile, Georgii Bovt wrote in
an article published in the 24 February "Izvestiya" that
Moscow risks becoming an international outcast unless it
finds a new way to deal with American plans to build NMD. PG
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