Polish and US officials unveiled yesterday the first battery of US surface-to-air Patriot-type missiles to be stationed on Polish soil, a move that has vexed Poland's communist-era master Russia.

"We regard the deployment of the Patriot system in Poland as an important step increasing our national security and in developing strategic cooperation with the United States," said Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich, whose country joined Nato in 1999 a decade after the communist bloc collapsed.

Mr Klich formally welcomed the 100-strong US unit that had arrived at a Polish army base in the northern town of Morag at the weekend, and viewed the three unarmed Patriot missile launchers which Polish troops will be trained to use.

"Your arrival here in Poland has two dimensions, political and symbolic. Politically, it's about Poland's security. And symbolically because on Polish soil, for the first time, US soldiers will be stationed long-term," he said.

The unit, normally stationed in Kaiserslautern, western Germany, is the first to take part in a 30-day training deployment in Poland.

Similar rotations are due every quarter until a year-round deployment starts in 2012.

Mr Klich said he hoped staunch ally Washington would station more troops in Poland in the future.

The Patriot system, which the US military says has a range of "more than 100 kilometres", aims to intercept surface-to-surface missiles.

Morag is just 60 kilometres from the border with Russia's Kaliningrad territory.

The deployment has raised Russian hackles.

"It is unclear why such a region located in the immediate proximity to the Russian border has been found for the deployment and where, as far as we know, there are no objects of military infrastructure," the Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed Russian foreign ministry official as saying.

The official said the move would "not lead to the strengthening of stability in this region but on the contrary decrease trust and predictability".

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