Russian state media have reported last year that Vladimir Putin is against the militarization of space and have, without offering any evidence, blamed NATO for the militarization of it.
However, this week, the Russian government has itself launched weapons into space that could target low orbit satellites of its adversaries, including those belonging to NATO and Five Eyes nations. According to the Independent Barents Observer, the “top-secret missile launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk region earlier this week was a weapon capable of destroying satellites in low orbit.”
In July 2020, the Kremlin issued a statement about the demilitarization of space in which the Russian Presidential Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said that “Russia has always been and remains a country that is committed to the goal of fully demilitarizing outer space and non-deployment of any kinds of arms in outer space.”
In the context of security and defence, space is a new domain that NATO is monitoring, yet NATO has never put a single weapon into outer space. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated in November 2019 that “NATO has no intention to put weapons in space. We are a defensive Alliance.”
The head of Russia’s space program is Dmitry Rogozin, who is the former chairman of the extremist nationalist party Rodina, which was banned from running in local Moscow elections in 2005 for promoting racial hatred, has also warned without evidence that Western nations are militarizing space while overseeing Russia’s space militarization program.
