Russian President Dmitry Medvedev switched on a missile early-warning radar station in the Baltic port city of Kaliningrad Tuesday in a move to counter the U.S. and NATO missile defence shield for Europe.

Medvedev said the facility located in the Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland is proof that Moscow will push through with its plan to match the anti-missile batteries to be deployed by the U.S. and NATO in Poland and Czech Republic by 2020.

Moscow sees the European missile defence shield as a security threat to Russia, though the U.S. and NATO insist that it aims to protect the EU from an Iranian missile attack.

The Pionerskoye, Kaliningrad radar can detect incoming missiles as far as 6,000 kilometres away and allow Russia's military to decide on a retaliatory nuclear strike. Air and Space Forces chief Oleg Ostapenko said the range, which covers the entire Europe up to the Atlantic Ocean, exceeded that of existing early-warning stations near St. Petersburg and in Belarus.

"I expect that this step will be seen by our partners as the first signal of the readiness of our country to make an adequate response to the threats which the missile shield poses for our strategic nuclear forces," BBC quoted Medvedev as saying at the radar station.

Medvedev warned that Moscow will also deploy the more advanced Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad if the missile defence shields are installed in Poland and Czech Republic.

"If our signal is ignored... we will deploy other means of defence including the adoption of tough counter-measures and the deployment of a strike group," Medvedev warned, according to Interfax.