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MOSCOW -- Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of using Cold War methods to persuade Europe to host an anti-missile shield that Moscow says is a threat to its national security.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Washington had failed to respect its European partners by devising the scheme unilaterally and then attempting to impose it.

"This is an old approach," Lavrov told the State Duma (parliament) in televised remarks.

"This is how they acted in past times, during the Cold War, when they scared everyone with the Soviet threat and persuaded everybody to group together in a disciplined block".

Washington plans to install warning radars and missile batteries in Poland and the Czech Republic as part of a scheme designed to counter future long-range rocket attacks by hostile states such as Iran or North Korea.

Moscow has strongly attacked the plan, saying Iran does not possess long-range missiles and charging that the shield threatens Russia's security instead. It has pledged to develop counter-measures.

President Vladimir Putin says the shield exemplifies a unilateralist approach by the United States to global security, a policy he says has made the world a more dangerous place.

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Amid worsening relations with the United States and attempts to project its own power beyond its borders, Moscow has called instead for greater multilateral cooperation to deal with emerging global threats.

Lavrov said Russian military experts wanted to discuss the shield with the Americans to persuade them that "so far hypothetical threats can be neutralized using other methods that would not pose a tangible threat to the Russian Federation".

Referring to the opposition in some European countries to deployment of the shield, Lavrov added: "Judging by the voices currently being heard in the European Union, our proposals will be listened to."

Attempting to dampen European opposition to the project, a senior U.S. official told a Polish newspaper on Wednesday that the shield would protect the continent and could be integrated into NATO.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, in Warsaw to discuss placing part of the shield on Polish soil, told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that Washington was talking about the shield with all European NATO countries.

"There have been many misunderstandings about this: for example, the view that the missile shield will only protect the United States," he said. "We want this system to protect Europe as well. For us, security is indivisible."

Russian officials have expressed disquiet over reports Washington also wants ex-Soviet Georgia to host part of the planned shield. Both Washington and Tbilisi have said no such request had been made.

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