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, …

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.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
    166·
    10 months ago

    I’m not saying Russia hasn’t drawn up plans for this but this story sounds like a PR thing. America is trying to pass a bill to fund Ukraine. Suddenly, this “intelligence” comes out? It’s probably just to light a fire under Congress’s ass.

    Putin is a real shitty leader but I’d imagine the U.S., China, India, and everyone else with an interest in space has plans to take out satellites. He’s probably not planning to nuke low earth orbit except in a mutually assured destruction scenario.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      10 months ago

      There’s been some speculation that it came out to justify killing surveillance reform (ie nsa, feebs, buying location data and stuff from brokers,)

    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      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.