President Putin issued a stark warning yesterday that Europe would be turned into a “powder keg” if the United States was allowed to install a missile defence shield on the Continent.

President Putin backed up his harsh words with the successful test launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile that Russia said was designed specifically to evade such defence systems.

In what is becoming the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War Mr Putin made clear that Moscow was determined to confront the American plan to place missile defences in Eastern Europe. “We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg and to stuff it with new weapons,” Mr Putin told José Socrates, the Portuguese Prime Minister, at a meeting in the Kremlin. “It creates new and unnecessary risks for the whole system of international and European relations.”

His message to Mr Socrates was calculated to divide member states of the European Union over the American proposal. Portugal assumes the EU presidency on July 1.

Mr Putin alarmed Nato by announcing last month that Russia would suspend its obligations under a landmark treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe because other states had not ratified the agreement. The Kremlin has called for an emergency conference in Vienna next month to resolve the issue amid warnings of a fresh arms race in Europe.

The new RS24 missile was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk cosmodrome 500 miles (800km) north of Moscow and hit its targets 3,750 miles away at the Kura test site in Kamchatka in the Russian Far East less than an hour later. The Russian Defence Ministry said that it could carry ten warheads, each capable of being directed at a separate target.

“The RS24 intercontinental ballistic missile will strengthen the military potential of Russia’s strategic rocket forces to overcome anti-missile defence systems and thereby strengthen the potential nuclear deterrent of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces,” the Strategic Missile Forces command said in a statement.

Colonel-General Viktor Yesin emphasised this message, telling Russian television: “It can overcome any potential entire missile defence systems developed by foreign countries.”

The launch was a direct challenge to the US, which has said that it wants to place ten interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic to guard against attacks from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

Moscow has condemned the plan as a threat to its national security and an attempt by the US to tip the balance of nuclear deterrence in its favour.

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