The US National Security Council has responded to comments earlier this week by a senior Russian foreign ministry official who warned that commercial satellites operated by the US and its allies could become legitimate targets if used to support Ukraine’s war effort.
Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the nuclear nonproliferation and arms control department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, in his speech at the United Nations First Committee on Wednesday, 26 October, made the following comments: “I would like to draw particular attention to the dangerous trend. I mean the use of civilian infrastructure facilities in space, including commercial ones, by the United States and its allies in armed conflict. Semi-civilian infrastructure could be a legitimate target for a retaliatory attack.”
Russia has the ability to shoot down satellites one by one and demonstrated this capability by deliberately destroying one of its satellites in 2021. While anti-satellite or ASAT tests are a kind of sword-swinging method, they are quite dangerous as they produce thousands of pieces of debris that get trapped in low orbit for years.
“Any attack on U.S. infrastructure will certainly be met, and I would like to say that there will be an appropriate response to the threat to our infrastructure,” John Kirby, director of communications for the U.S. National Security Council, told reporters yesterday. It remains unclear what this response will look like, or whether the services provided by private satellites qualify as “US infrastructure”.
The Russia-Ukraine war seems to have begun to spill over into the world in different ways, apparently. So, what are your views on this subject?
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