Washington accuses Russia of testing a new anti-satellite weapon

“The American and British representatives are again presenting a distorted image to distract the international community from the real threats in space and justify the placement of weapons and additional financing for these purposes,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. this Friday (07/24/2020). The allegations, Moscow says, are part of “an information campaign aimed at discrediting Russian activities in space.”

The United States, supported by the United Kingdom, yesterday accused Russia of testing a weapon that could be used to destroy satellites in space and was concerned about the new threat. The US Space Force “has evidence” that Moscow “carried out a non-destructive test of an anti-satellite weapon from space” on July 15, according to a statement. “Last week’s test is a new example that the threats against space facilities in the United States and its allies are real, serious and growing,” the Space Force added.

Renegotiation of the START treaty on Monday

“It is unacceptable,” tweeted US disarmament negotiator Marshall Billingslea, who said he would address that “serious problem” in Vienna next week, during talks to replace the bilateral New START treaty on limiting the number of nuclear warheads in United States and Russia.

In the wake of the allegations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said today that “Russia has always been and remains a country committed to the task of fully demilitarizing space and not placing weapons in space.” “It is not understood what is the objective pursued by the American colleagues. We would like to trust that they do not seek to predetermine the tone and the results of the meeting and hinder the important bilateral dialogue on space issues and strategic stability in general,” he adds.

New space race

According to the United States Space Command, Russia put an object into orbit from the Cosmos 2543 satellite, deployed, according to information from Russian state media, by another satellite, Cosmos 2542, launched on November 25, 2019 by the Russian army. The Russian Defense Ministry said the satellite is intended to “monitor the state of Russian satellites,” but the state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta said it has the ability to “obtain information from other satellites.”

The system used in last week’s test is the same one that the US Space Force alerted months ago when Russia approached a US government satellite, said General Jay Raymond, who heads this branch of the military. “This is further evidence of Russia’s continued efforts to develop and test systems from space, in accordance with the Kremlin military doctrine that it wants to resort to weapons that keep the facilities of the United States and its allies under threat,” he added. Raymond, quoted in the statement.

“Russia launched this object in the vicinity of another Russian satellite, which is similar to Russia’s orbiting activity in 2017, and inconsistent with the system’s declared mission as an inspection satellite,” the US command said in a statement. “This case highlights Russia’s hypocritical defense of gun control in space,” said Christopher Ford, the US undersecretary of state for gun control.

The conflict between Washington and Moscow comes shortly after China launched a vehicle Thursday that will explore the surface of Mars, a mission that coincides with a similar one in the United States, a sign that the powers are taking their rivalry to space.

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