Thursday Briefing

Russian advances on a space-based nuclear weapon raised alarms

The U.S. has informed Congress and allies in Europe about Russian advances on a new, space-based nuclear weapon designed to threaten America’s satellite network, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Such a weapon could destroy civilian communications, surveillance from space and military command-and-control operations used by the U.S. and its allies. At the moment, the U.S. cannot defend its satellites from such a weapon, a former official said.

Russia does not appear close to deploying the weapon, and it is not considered an urgent threat, according to officials. But the new intelligence, which officials did not describe in detail, raised serious questions about whether Russia was preparing to abandon the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bans orbital nuclear weapons.

Concerns about placing nuclear weapons in space go back generations. The U.S. experimented with versions of the technology but never deployed them, and Russia has been developing its space-based capabilities for decades. U.S. military officials have warned that both Russia and China are moving toward greater militarization of space, as all three superpowers work on ways to blind the others.

News from the war: Ukraine said that its forces had sunk a large Russian landing ship off the coast of Crimea.