Russia has said the US missile system will negatively affect global strategic stability, while China has opposed it because it believes that the THAAD deployment will seriously damage its security interest. Russian Ambassador to Seoul Aleksandr Timonin has said that Russia regards this move as the US's effort to create a new regional segment of Washington's global missile defence strategy. Antonov has clearly said that THAAD deployment goes beyond the task of deterring the North Korean threat. According to a recent report, South Korea claimed that North Korea could own 45 nuclear weapons by 2020. South Korea already has some narrow and low-altitude missile defence system such as PAC-2 and 3 and therefore, THAAD will give South Korea a higher-altitude defence system to counter North Korean threats.

Source: Economic Times February 21, 2017 12:46 UTC