The United States and Poland signed a deal in Warsaw on Wednesday to station elements of a US missile defence shield on Polish soil, in a move accelerated by Moscow’s intervention in Georgia but billed as not targeting Russia.

The site in Poland hosting 10 interceptor rockets, and a giant radar in the neighbouring Czech Republic, will form the European part of a global system that Washington says it is assembling to shoot down ballistic missiles it fears could be launched by ”rogue” states such as Iran or terrorist groups.