MOSCOW (AFP) - A top Russian General threatened Wednesday to target planned American missile shield sites in Poland and the Czech Republic with ballistic missiles amid icy US-Russia relations over Georgia. General Nikolai Solovtsov, head of strategic missile forces, said if Washington pushes forward plans to build installations in Central Europe the Kremlin would act to ensure Russia's vast nuclear arsenal remained effective. "I can't exclude that ... the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and other such objects could be chosen as designated targets for some of our inter-continental ballistic missiles," he said, quoted by Interfax news agency. Such a move would guarantee Russian missile forces can "fulfil the task of strategic deterrence," he said. On Wednesday the Czech government approved an agreement on deploying US forces at a powerful radar base planned as part of the shield. The agreement was the last hurdle before the missile shield plans, which are strongly opposed by Russia, go before the Czech parliament. While the 10 missile interceptors planned for Poland could not themselves undermine Russia's arsenal, Moscow is troubled by a lack of transparency in the project, General Solovtsov said. Solovtsov said that by the end of the year Russia planned to carry out four strategic missile tests, including a test of the new RS-24, capable of carrying a clutch of independently targetable warheads. Meanwhile, Russia ruled out Wednesday allowing EU observers into the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, contradicting claims by French President Nicolas Sarkozyy - when he went to Moscow and Tbilisi to shore up the terms of a deal that halted last month's Russia-Georgia war - over the mission. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov threw into doubt the remit of the EU mission just two days after Sarkozy brokered the deployment of 200 observers to monitor a complete Russian withdrawal from Georgian territory outside the rebel regions. "Additional international observers will be deployed precisely around South Ossetia and Abkhazia and not inside these republics," Lavrov told journalists in Moscow. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday that the location of the observers had not actually been discussed during talks, but that access to the rebel territories was clearly in the "spirit" of the agreements. "This is something that was not discussed at that point in time," he told members of the European Parliament. He said the mission "will be deployed with the spirit that it can deploy everywhere," including Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but that initially the EU observers would deploy on the basis of "the accords signed Monday" in Moscow. Lavrov on Wednesday angrily rejected the EU suggestion its monitors would have access to the rebel regions. He said peacekeeping inside Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be carried out by the same number of military observers as before last month's conflict - when Russia had the main role - although agreements would have to be changed to take account of Russia's recognition of their independence.