The Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Office in Geneva, Andrey Belousov, noted that " now the launches of American satellites are put on stream, which is more and more like a creeping expansion in space"
GENEVA, June 3. /TASS/. The United States registers all its satellites, including military ones, as communications or meteorological satellites, hiding their real functions. This leads to a decrease in the predictability of space activities, Andrei Belousov, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Office and other international organizations in Geneva, said on Thursday at the Conference on Disarmament (CD).
"The United States continues to register all its satellites (both scientific and military purposes-approx. TASS) exclusively as communication or meteorological satellites, thus hiding their real functions. This reduces the predictability and transparency of space activities, " the Russian diplomat said.
He expressed categorical disagreement with the statements of the US Permanent Representative to the Kyrgyz Republic, Robert Wood, who stated in his speech that Russia allegedly poses a threat to the space activities of other states. "By making such statements, my distinguished American colleague modestly keeps silent about the role of the United States in increasing tension, increasing turbulence and reducing security in near-Earth orbits," Belousov said.
As the diplomat stressed, "the American anti-satellite weapons programs were still at the final stage in the mid-90s of the last century" - we are talking about "plans to create air-based laser anti-satellite systems". The anti-satellite capability of the interceptor missiles developed as part of the US global missile defense program was demonstrated in 2008, when the United States destroyed its USA-193 spy satellite with an SM-3 missile, part of the AEGIS-ashore sea-based complex.
According to Belousov ," now the launches of American satellites are put on stream, which is more and more like a creeping expansion in space in order to stake out the most extensive areas of near-Earth space." In the near future, the American satellite constellation "will reach about one and a half thousand objects," which significantly exceeds the space property of the rest of the countries combined, the diplomat warned.
He also drew the attention of the CD participants to the actively developing public-commercial partnership in the space sector in the United States over the past years, including in the interests of the Ministry of Defense. A striking example of such cooperation, he called the creation of the Boeing corporation by order of the Pentagon unmanned reusable space shuttle X-37B. "We can assume its widest application, including for conducting combat operations and destroying space objects," Belousov stated.
