(WARSAW) - Poland's President Lech Kaczynski has alleged in an interview that Russia's military action in Georgia was aimed at toppling the Georgian government and that it sealed his country's decision to host a US missile shield vehemently opposed by Moscow.

"First, Russia wanted to carry out an annexation of two provinces (Abkhazia, South Ossetia). Second, there was an attempt to topple the (Georgian) government," Kaczynski said in an interview due to appear in the October 6 international edition of Newsweek magazine.

"The West was capable of one thing: not allowing this toppling of the government," Kaczynski, regarded as one of the most vocal critics of Russia within the EU, told Newsweek.

"My intervention and that of the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and some engagement of the United States, forcing the engagement of NATO and, the least willingly, the European Union caused the Russians to not go for that (toppling the government of Georgia)," Kaczynski said.

Kaczynski also insisted that Russia's military action in Georgia has made "more difficult" moves by Poland and others to build routes to transport oil and natural gas on a large scale from Azerbaijan, and potentially Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, to the West bypassing Russia.

"The Russians showed a certain helplessness on the part of the West. That's terrible because the West is much stronger than they are," Kaczynski said.

"We have to convince Russia that the imperial era is over," the Polish leader told Newsweek.

Asked whether the conflict in Georgia influenced Poland's August 14 decision to host a US missile shield strongly opposed by Russia, Kaczynski replied: "Yes, that's it."

While Washington insists the shield is designed to ward off potential attacks by so-called "rogue" states such as Iran and does not target Russia, Moscow regards it as a grave security threat.

"Theoretically, (the missile shield is) against world terrorism. But I know how it defends Poland: by ensuring that Americans do not become indifferent to any attempts to include Poland in Russia's sphere of influence," Kaczynski told Newsweek.

The Polish leader also insists the Georgia crisis could have been prevented if NATO had given Georgia and fellow ex-Soviet republic Ukraine MAP status (Membership Action Plan) at its April summit in Bucharest.

Having shed communism and Moscow's control in 1989, Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004 and is among the most ardent advocates of their further eastward expansion.

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