UNITED NATIONS –
Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.S.-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution calling on countries to prevent an arms race in outer space, a move that led the United States to question whether Moscow was hiding something.
The vote came after Washington accused Moscow of developing an anti-satellite nuclear weapon to place in space, a charge Russia has denied. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow was against putting nuclear weapons in space.
“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you follow the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you be hiding?” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council after the vote. “It’s disconcerting and a shame.”
Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused Washington of trying to smear Moscow and said Russia would soon begin negotiations with council members on its own draft resolution aimed at maintaining peaceful space.
“We want a ban on placing weapons of any kind in outer space, not just (weapons of mass destruction). But you don’t want that… Let me ask you the same question: Why?” Nebenzia asked Thomas-Greenfield at the council.
The draft resolution was put to a vote by the United States and Japan after nearly six weeks of negotiations. It received 13 votes in favor, while China abstained and Russia cast a veto.
The UN text would have affirmed the obligation to comply with the Outer Space Treaty and would have called on states “to actively contribute to the objective of the peaceful use of outer space and the prevention of an arms race in outer space.”
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits signatories, including Russia and the United States, from placing “in orbit around the Earth any object carrying nuclear weapons or any other type of weapons of mass destruction.”
Talks
Before the council voted on the US draft text, Russia and China had proposed that it be amended to include a call for all states to “forever prevent the placement of weapons in outer space and the threat or use of force in outer space, from space against the Earth and from the Earth against objects in outer space.”
The council voted on the proposed amendment, but it was not approved. It received seven votes in favor, seven against and one abstention.
U.S. intelligence officials, according to three people familiar with their findings, believe the Russian capability is a space nuclear bomb whose electromagnetic radiation, if detonated, would disable vast satellite networks.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said Russia has not yet deployed such a weapon.
Governments have increasingly viewed satellites in Earth orbit as crucial assets enabling a variety of military capabilities on Earth, and space communications and satellite-linked drones in the Ukraine war serve as recent examples of the enormous role of space in modern warfare.
Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said earlier this month that Moscow and Washington were in contact about not deploying nuclear weapons in space, as quoted by the TASS news agency.
“We are in contact because they declined to discuss the issue further,” said a senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t know if it refers to anything else, but that has been the level of contact we have had on this issue.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, additional reporting by Joey Roulette and Steve Holland in Washington Editing by Alistair Bell)