Newsman: Russia warned that Moscow could target Western commercial satellites used for military purposes in support of Ukraine and a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman accused the United States of pursuing “thoughtless and mad” escalation.
The deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, Konstantin Vorontsov, described the use of U.S. and other Western commercial satellites for military purposes during the fighting as “extremely dangerous.”
“The quasi-civilian infrastructure could be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Vorontsov warned.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova argued that Washington should take an approach more like it did during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Cold War superpowers stepped back from the brink of nuclear confrontation.
“The more the U.S. is drawn into supporting the Kyiv regime on the battlefield, the more they risk provoking a direct military confrontation between the biggest nuclear powers fraught with catastrophic consequences,” Zakharova said.
The deputy director Konstantin Vorontsov, told the United Nations that the United States and its allies were trying to use space to enforce Western dominance.
Vorontsov, reading from notes, said the use of Western satellites to aid the Ukrainian war effort was “an extremely dangerous trend”.
“Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Vorontsov told the United Nations First Committee, adding that the West’s use of such satellites to support Ukraine was “provocative”.
“We are talking about the involvement of components of civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, by the United States and its allies in armed conflicts,” Vorontsov was quoted as saying at the United Nations.
Vorontsov did not mention any specific satellite companies though Elon Musk said earlier this month that his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds.”
Russia last year launched an anti-satellite missile to destroy one of its own decommissioned satellites. Russia, in 1957 launched Sputnik 1, the first manmade satellite, into space and in 1961 put the first man in outer space, has a significant offensive space capability – as do the United States and China. In 2021,
White House spokesman John Kirby said publicly available information shows Russia has been trying to pursue anti-satellite technologies.
Kirby told reporters at a briefing that any targeting of U.S. infrastructure will be met with a response but did not specify what the response would be.
Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk said earlier this month that his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink Internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds.”
Musk activated Starlink, a network of more than 2,000 satellites orbiting the Earth and thousands of terminals on the ground, in late February after Internet services were disrupted because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
