Outer space

Putin fears the US and NATO are militarizing space and Russia is right to worry, experts say

NATO, the U.S. and Russia have a new domain to compete and conflict over: space.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that the U.S. saw space as as “theater of military operations” and that the development of the U.S. Space Force posed a threat to Russia.

“The U.S. military-political leadership openly considers space as a military theater and plans to conduct operations there,” Putin said at a meeting with defense officials in Sochi, according to Russian news agency TASS.

“For preserving strategic supremacy in this field the United States is accelerating creation of its space forces, which are already in the process of operative preparations,” Putin said, adding that the world’s leading countries are fast-tracking the development of modern military space systems and dual purpose satellites and that Russia needed to do the same.

“The situation requires us to pay increased attention to strengthening the orbital group, as well as the rocket and space industry as a whole.”