(TheRedAlertNews.com) – In a reaction reflecting fear from the United States and potential consequences, Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin and his regime have denied revelations by a key US lawmaker that Moscow is working to deploy a nuclear weapon in space that could destroy American satellites.
Putin, who ignited one of the world’s biggest wars after World War II by invading US ally Ukraine two years ago, issued a flat rejection of the revelations by Republican US Rep. Mike Turner, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Turner recently raised alarms about an unidentified nation’s efforts to forge a “destabilizing” space weapon. He called on President Joe Biden to make related intelligence public.
Reports following Turner’s remarks hinted at the weapon’s potential to disable vital US satellites, integral to the nation’s security.
“Our position is clear and transparent: We have always been categorically against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and we are still against it,” Putin said, as cited by The Daily Wire.
Similarly, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that Russia lacks such a weapon, a fact he claims the US is aware of.
Meanwhile, during a discussion at the Munich Security Conference, Major General Michael Traut of Germany’s Military Space Command highlighted the grave threat posed by such weapons.
“If somebody dares to explode a nuclear weapon in high atmosphere or even space, this would be more or less the end of the usability of that global commons [of orbit]. Nobody would survive an action like that — no satellite, either Chinese or Russian and American or European. If somebody calculates rationally, nobody would employ such a weapon in space,” Tout said.
Lt. Col. “Tony” Vincent, a prominent physicist in the USAF, in a 2022 commentary, detailed the dangerous implications of a nuclear blast in space based on the historical precedent of the 1962 Starfish Prime test.
This event demonstrated the extensive damage a single nuclear explosion in low Earth orbit can inflict on satellites.
Vincent advocates for enhancing commercial satellites’ resistance to radiation despite the associated cost and design implications.
He outlined two primary motives behind a nation’s decision to employ a nuclear weapon in space: to severely harm the American economy and to disrupt the US military’s space-based operational capabilities.
Given its substantial investment in space technology, Vincent also warned of the disproportionate damage such an attack would inflict on the US.
