A new arms race?

"We think it is damaging and dangerous to transform Europe into a powder keg and fill it with new forms of weapons," Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a joint press conference in Moscow with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates.

The comments come amid a stand-off with Washington over US plans to place a radar base in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, part of a missile defense shield to protect against what the United States calls "rogue" states, such as Iran and North Korea.

Russia tests missile

Russian officials meanwhile announced on Tuesday they had successfully tested a new multiple warhead ballistic missile designed to overcome air-defense systems such as the proposed US shield.

Fired from the north-eastern Arkhangelsk region, the RS-24 rocket hit its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula that juts into the Pacific Ocean 6,000 kilometers (3,720 miles) away, the country's strategic missile forces said in a statement.

"The RS-24 reinforces the military potential of the strategic forces to overcome anti-missile defense systems," the statement said.

Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, a former defense minister and widely seen as a potential successor to President Vladimir Putin in 2008, said the RS-24 could overcome any such anti-missile system.

"These complexes are capable of penetrating all existing and perspective anti-missile systems," he was quoted by Interfax. "So from the point of view of defense and security, Russians can look at the future calmly."

Catching up with the US

Putin announced Moscow was freezing compliance with a European conventional weapons control treaty and has warned that a new arms race is possible.

Military analyst Alexander Golts said the test was part of a massive push by the Russian government to catch up with the United States' strategic missile forces.

"The main military political aim of the current Russian leadership is to regain parity with the United States," he said, according to AFP.

Putin criticizes EU

Putin on Tuesday also criticized the European Union, whose relations with Moscow have been severely strained in recent months, leading EU leaders to voice sharp criticism of democratic setbacks in Putin's Russia.

"Let's not talk as if on one side we are dealing with pure, white and fluffy partners and on the other side with a monster that has just left the forest and has claws instead of feet and horns growing," he said.

"The death sentence in several Western countries, secret prisons and torture right in Europe, problems with the media in some European countries... are these also common values?" Putin asked.

Strained relations

Relations between Brussels and Moscow have been exacerbated by the concerns of newer EU members that previously were either part of the Soviet Union or members of the Soviet bloc.

During a Russia-EU summit earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced concern about Russia's commitment to democracy and human rights.

After the German leader urged Moscow to allow a banned opposition march during a recent EU-Russia summit in Samara, Russia, local authorities approved the march.

Organizers, however, were subsequently detained on trains and in airports on suspicion of having counterfeit money and tickets or of carrying grenades, and could not make the march.