Russia Space Nuke Warning Sparks Flurry of Theories

Speculation has been mounting following claims that Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon headed for space.

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner urged President Joe Biden to declassify information on the "serious national security threat" from Russia on Wednesday, with reports that the threat involved a space-based nuclear weapon emerging shortly thereafter.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed some details of the reports during a press briefing on Thursday, while stressing that the threat is not "a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth."

However, many questions about the weapon remain unanswered, as details on the threat are still classified. In the absence of official information, some defense experts have weighed in with their own theories on the nature of the weapon.

Guy McCardle, managing editor of SOFREP, told Newsweek that the threat seemed "vague, but serious," while warning that attempts to explain details of still-classified information were "open to wild speculation."

Shashank Joshi, the defense editor for U.K. publication The Economist, shared what he called an "interesting" 2019 article from The Space Review about a Russian "military satellite equipped with a nuclear power source" in a Thursday post to X, formerly Twitter.

The article claimed that Russia was developing a satellite known as Ekipazh, while speculating that it would be used "to perform electronic warfare from space"—potentially with the ability to knock out communications for the U.S. and other nations Moscow considers to be adversarial.

Open source intelligence analyst Oliver Alexander responded to Joshi's post by arguing that Ekipazh was "a very probable cause" of the reported threat, while noting that funding for the program had been cut but may be "back on the table" as international tensions rise amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

McCardle told Newsweek that although the threat may involve electronic warfare, a Russian nuclear-powered military satellite would not be "news," pointing out that "nuclear power has been used to power some satellites for decades, usually when solar power is not sufficient."

"If I had to guess, since all of the facts are classified, it may be a technology to somehow knock out or disable our satellites, thus blinding us and leaving us vulnerable and open to attack," McCardle said. "At this point, though, that's just speculation."

Sharon Squassoni, an international affairs research professor at George Washington University, told Newsweek that Joshi's post prompted speculation that is "very, very different from sending a nuclear weapon into space to attack satellites," something that she said would make "no sense."

"Satellites can be disabled or destroyed with far less than a nuclear weapon so to my mind, it makes no sense at all to use a nuclear weapon," Squassoni said. "Using nuclear weapons in space is like using a shotgun to target a fish in a fishbowl—it's overkill, to say the least."

Squassoni also pointed out that Russia is a party to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which prohibits signatories from sending nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction into orbit.

Sources briefed on the purported weapon told Reuters that it does not "pose an urgent threat to the United States" and should not "be a cause for panic," especially since it is not currently in orbit.

Russia has claimed, without evidence, that the threat is a "malicious fabrication" by the White House to encourage approval of more military aid for Ukraine. Supporters of former President Donald Trump's MAGA movement have made similar evidence-free claims.

"It is obvious that the White House is trying, by hook or by crook, to encourage Congress to vote on a bill to allocate money, this is obvious," said Vladimir Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, according to Reuters. "We'll see what tricks the White House will use."