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| Reuters: Russia warns of arms war in space: reports | |
| 2007-10-03 | |
| MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's military space commander vowed to retaliate with an arms race if any country started putting weapon systems into orbit, he said in remarks published on Wednesday. "We need to have strong rules about space, to avoid its militarization and if any country will place a weapon in space, then our response will be the same," Space Forces Commander Colonel-General Vladimir Popovkin told the newspaper Trud. Popovkin's remarks were the latest in a series of increasingly assertive statements from the Russian military, which is alarmed at what it sees as a growing hardware imbalance with the West. Stung by NATO expansion up to Russia's borders, President Vladimir Putin has given notice that Russia intends to pull out of a treaty limiting conventional forces in Europe. Tensions between Russia and Washington have deepened over U.S. plans to rekindle the stalled "Star Wars" program from the 1980s with a new generation of missile defense shields. Popovkin said no country had the right to declare itself the master of space, so strike forces shouldn't be deployed there. He avoided naming names but his comments follow growing friction over space between Moscow, Washington and Beijing. Earlier this year China tested an anti-satellite missile and the U.S. has been developing weapons which can hit satellites.
Although the forces were left blind in some areas after the break-up of the Soviet Union, they were now reorganized, Popovkin said. "In 2009, we'll begin testing a new generation satellite. Already, Russia can detect any ballistic missile being launched from earth towards Russia," he said. | |
| Posted by:Delphi |
| #7 A country that doesn't care enough its future to maintain its own population is doomed in any case. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-10-03 21:09 |
| #6 Iff I remember correctly, RUSSIA has said it will not pull out/abandon the CFE iff the USA-NATO formally adopts the modified version of the agreement. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-03 19:45 |
| #5 Putin is pathetic : the long-term threat to Russia is an energy- and resource-hungry China simply taking the Russian Far East away from the Russians; but Putin would rather piss away billions on a space race with the US, in a vain glorious national episode of "Mine is bigger than yours!!". And that little display is doomed to failure since the US has already been to the Moon several times at government expense, and will have Moon landers there in the next decade per private enterprise. What the Russians should be doing with the extra billions from oil and gas sales is improving the east-west transportation corridors to and from the Russian Far East; rehabilitating every old Soviet era base in the area up to modern standards; and situating several thousand T-90s, SU-30/35 and MiG-31, and at least 200 thousand more troops there - all to make sure that the Chinese KNOW that a grab for the RFE is going to NOT go well. But instead, Putin is doing all he can to pull a Stalin type deal with the now National Socialist Chinese, and he will get repaid in kind : a Chinese Operation Barbarossa that has a good chance of succeeding. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2007-10-03 19:21 |
| #4 No better way to bankrupt Russia than getting them into another space race. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-03 18:44 |
| #3 Sounds like Putin is angling to try out some new space toys and has to get rid of the impediments. |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-10-03 18:26 |
| #2 formatting error in last one.. Its a pot calling the kettle black... Defence measures In addition to reconnaissance equipment, the Almaz had an on-board cannon derived from the 23mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon (other sources say it was a Nudelmann NR-30 30mm gun). Salyut 3 conducted a successful test firing on a target satellite. OPS-4 featured two unguided missiles instead of the aircraft cannon of previous stations. link |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-10-03 12:03 |
| #1 Soviet StarWars more almaz russian spaceweb |