The U.S. informed its NATO and Asian allies that Russia could deploy a nuclear weapon into space this year after details of American intelligence assessments of its ambitions circulated last week, according to The New York Times.
U.S. intelligence agencies also told allies Moscow could also send a harmless “dummy” warhead into space that would likely leave questions about Russia’s capabilities, the Times reported Wednesday.
American officials are reportedly divided in their predictions about Russia’s space ambitions. Officials pointed to Russia’s series of satellite launches in early 2022 and how American intelligence officials found out Russia was developing a new space-based weapon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.S.’s Chinese and Indian counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend that a nuclear detonation in space would knock out American satellites, along with those of Beijing and New Delhi, the Times reported Saturday.
Russian legal bodies recently pushed to close the info on their funding of Roskosmos and other connected structures. If that’s a PR thing they do play into it. But I don’t think they’d really do so, as it’s a very resourcr consuming project out of their current priority, but a convinient mix of showing off and finding a safer way to still buy foreign equipment for a military.