Sept 15 (Reuters) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday the U.S. acknowledgement that Washington had deployed orbital weapons ignored the possible consequences of a conflict and threatened long-term stability in space-based activity.
“In pursuit of its narrow self-interests, Washington is ready to completely ignore the catastrophic consequences for humanity of any armed conflict in orbit,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on the ministry website.
Zakharova said the presence of U.S. weapons in space risks the prospects for space exploration.
“Colossal risks are created for numerous socio-economic processes on Earth and people’s well-being directly depends on them,” she said.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told a conference near Washington, D.C., on Monday that the United States possessed “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”
The statement was the strongest admission by a U.S. official of American weapons in space amid rising space tensions with Russia and China.
Zakharova described the acknowledgement as part of attempts to “distract world attention from the U.S.’ own aggressive strivings in terms of space,” including “absurd” accusations that Moscow was developing anti-satellite weapons.
“The moratorium on testing … anti-satellite missiles promoted by the so-called ‘collective West’ is laden with hypocrisy, as in reality it does not affect the use of weapons that the U.S. already has and does not apply to other types of anti-satellite systems that Washington is seeking to develop,” she said.
Zakharova said resolutions co-authored by Russia on barring deployment of space-based weapons and transparency in using space would be presented to the U.N. General Assembly next month.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Rod Nickel)
