Russia warns against deploying weapons in space

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov today threatened retaliatory steps if any country deploys weapons in space, according to Russian news agencies.

“Russia’s position on this question has not changed for decades: We are categorically against the militarisation of space,” Ivanov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

“If some state begins to realise such plans, then we doubtless will take adequate retaliatory measures,” ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The US administration currently is reviewing the US space policy doctrine. Last month, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that the policy review was not considering weapons in space.

But he said new threats to US satellites have emerged in the years since the US space doctrine was last reviewed in 1996, and those satellites must be protected.

In 2002, after the US withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, China and Russia submitted a proposal for a new international treaty to ban weapons in outer space.

But the US has said it sees no need for any new space arms control agreements. It is party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits stationing weapons of mass destruction in space.