The United States is already deploying its missile defense system in Europe without waiting for an agreement with Russia, Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said.

Romania announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the United States to deploy a U.S. missile interceptor system at a disused Soviet airbase on its territory. Moscow then issued an urgent request for legal guarantees from the United States that its missile shield will not target Russia's strategic nuclear forces.

"We have seen once again that the United States plans to unfold its system de facto without waiting for the end of [missile defense] talks with Russia, as the situation with the treaty with Romania shows," Rogozin told journalists after an ambassadorial-level NATO-Russia Council meeting on Thursday.

Rogozin said earlier on Thursday that Russia would cooperate with NATO only on a joint European missile defense network project, but will not be part of a U.S. missile defense in Europe.

Russia and NATO agreed to cooperate on the so-called European missile defense system at the Lisbon summit in November 2010. NATO insists there should be two independent systems that exchange information, while Russia favors a joint system with full-scale interoperability.

earlier related report
Moscow pushes for guarantee U.S. missile shield not targeting Russia
Moscow urgently wants to receive legal guarantees from the United States that its European missile defense shield will not target Russia's strategic nuclear forces, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day the United States reached an agreement with Romania to establish an interceptor facility at a former air base in the south of the Balkan country for a future defense shield, the first such deployment in Europe.

Russia is keeping a sharp eye on the deployment of elements of the U.S. missile defense system in Romania, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"In this situation the necessity of legal guarantees from the United States that [its] missile defense system... will not be aimed against Russia's strategic nuclear forces becomes even more crucial," the statement said.

"This issue should be resolved swiftly. Moreover, we are sure that it is necessary...to proceed to the coordination of the concept and the architecture of the European missile defense system as soon as possible," the statement said.

"We regretfully say that practical steps to create the European segment of the global missile defense shield of the United States are being taken with no regard to Russian-U.S. dialogue on the anti-missile issue started under the initiative of presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, as well as to the work under the Russia-NATO Council's Lisbon Summit aimed to draft a European missile defense system," the Russian document said.