U.S. says Russia is building nuclear weapons in space, Putin denies the claim

Russia’s space activities are no different than those of other countries, including the United States. (document)

Moscow:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia opposes the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and Russia’s defense minister flatly rejected U.S. claims that Russia is developing nuclear capabilities in space.

Washington believes Moscow is developing a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon whose detonation could disrupt everything from military communications to phone-based ride-hailing services, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

“Our position is clear and transparent: we have always been firmly opposed and are now opposed to the deployment of nuclear weapons in space,” Putin told Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

“We not only urge compliance with all existing agreements in this field, but have repeatedly proposed strengthening this joint work,” Putin said.

He added that Russia’s space activities are no different from those of other countries, including the United States.

The clearest public indication that Washington believes Moscow is developing space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapons was comments made by a White House spokesman on Thursday that the system being developed would violate the Outer Space Treaty.

The 1967 treaty prohibits signatories – including Russia and the United States – from “placing in orbit around the Earth any object carrying a nuclear weapon or any other type of weapon of mass destruction.”

The New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence is linked to Russia’s attempts to develop space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapons.

“There is no such project”

Commenting on the U.S. accusations, Shoigu said the U.S. had no such plans as outlined by unidentified sources.

“First of all, such a project – a nuclear weapon in space does not exist. Secondly, the United States knows that this does not exist,” Shoigu told Putin.

He accused the White House of trying to intimidate U.S. lawmakers into allocating more funds to Ukraine as part of Washington’s plan to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

He said the second reason for leaking information about so-called Russian weapons was to encourage Russia to engage in dialogue on strategic stability.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to the most serious confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and the collapse of the post-Cold War arms control architecture.

Putin said Russia has never been opposed to discussions about strategic stability, but said it was impossible to separate what he said was the West’s goal of defeating Russia from discussions on strategic security.

“If they try to cause a strategic failure for us, then we have to think about what strategic stability means for our country,” Putin said.

“So we’re not rejecting anything, we’re not giving up anything, but we need to figure out what they want. Often they want to gain unilateral advantage. That’s not going to happen.”

Putin did not rule out holding talks with the United States on strategic stability issues at the Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry levels.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)