"Rice soon responded ""Everybody understands that with a growing Iranian missile threat, which is quite pronounced, that there need to be ways to deal with that problem and that we are talking about long lead times to be able to have a defensive counter to offensive-missile threats" In April 2007, Rice indicated that Russia's concerns over the missile defense system were "ludicrous;" Putin responded by suggesting imposing a moratorium on an arms control treaty that NATO countries had long refused to ratify.