US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has condemned Russia's reaction to a new US-Poland missile defence deal as 'bizarre'.

Russia lashed out at the U.S. over its deal to build parts of its missile defence system in Poland, warning that its reaction would go beyond diplomacy.

The Polish-U.S. agreement was signed yesterday, by Rice and Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski.

Though the US has protested that NATO has an obligation to defend Poland, a Russian general swiftly claimed that Poland had made itself a 'nuclear target ... to be destroyed as soon as possible' with the deal.

New deal: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Poland's counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski today

The deal, coming hard on the heels of a stand-off between the US and Russia over Russia's military incursion into Georgia, fuelled the former Soviet Union's Cold War fears.

'I hope that there are not people in Russia who are hankering for the days of U.S.-Soviet confrontation because they are over,' Rice told journalists in Warsaw after signing the agreement to base 10 U.S. interceptor rockets in Poland.

'The Cold War is over.'

Asked about the Russian general's threat to target Poland with nuclear weapons because of the anti-missile defence system, Rice said she understood why NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer had denounced the remark as .pathetic rhetoric'.

'What the secretary general was referring to is fulminating about how you're going to attack Poland because there are 10 interceptors aimed at long-range threats of the future from countries like Iran when you've been offered all kinds of measures to demonstrate that the missiles are not aimed at  Russia,' Rice said.

'(It) just borders on the bizarre.'

The ten interceptor rockets in Poland will form part of a global defence system.

But the Russian Foreign Ministry said the plans were clearly aimed at weakening Moscow.

Enlarge 

Guarantee: Poland demanded a battery of Patriot missiles like these as part of the deal

In a statement, officials said the defences 'do not have, and in the foreseeable future will not have, any target other than Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles'.

'In this case Russia will be forced to react, and not only through diplomatic demarches (procedures)'.

The latest war of words is certain to increase tensions between Russia and the U.S., which have already been heightened by Moscow's decision to invade Georgia and take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Poland, the biggest ex-Soviet satellite in central Europe, as well as the Baltic nations that were Soviet republics until 1991, have condemned Russia's strike against Tbilisi.

Across the region, newspapers, commentators and politicians drew parallels between Moscow's operations in Georgia to Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968 to crush their attempts to leave Moscow's orbit.

Following the events in Georgia, surveys showed a turnaround of Polish public opinion in favour of the shield, accompanied by a sharp rise in apprehension of Russia.

Some Russian politicians and generals have said Poland must be prepared for a preventive attack on the site in the future - a threat that Washington continues to dismiss as empty rhetoric.

NATO denounced threats against alliance member Poland as unacceptable.

It endorsed the U.S. missile defence plan for Europe at its summit in Bucharest in April even though some European allies are sceptical about its effectiveness and concerned it could lead to a new arms race.

The missile shield deal will now need to be approved by the Polish parliament, which is seen as a formality because the government as well as the main opposition party support it.

Tusk's government bargained hard over the terms of the deal since coming to power last November, demanding greater military cooperation with the United States for hosting the site.

The negotiations seemed stuck in July but a compromise was reached just as Russia intervened in South Ossetia.

Under the deal, Washington finally agreed to meet Poland's demand to equip its army with a battery of Patriot missiles as defence against a short-range attack Warsaw fears.

'The presence of the Patriot battery which will defend our territory and the U.S. installation is a practical dimension of this watershed agreement,' Tusk said.

Rice said Poland's role as the strategic U.S. partner in NATO would get a boost from the deal.

'This is a very special day,' Rice said. 'For Poland and the United States this is just one more example of the deepening of our relations over the last 20 years.'

It was also revealed yesterday that Russia could cut all military ties with Nato. The alliance has suspended all formal contact with the country as punishment for sending troops into Georgia.