The White Home confirmed on Thursday that it’s monitoring Russia’s growth of a brand new weapon to be stationed in house.
The weapon is believed to be nuclear-related, a number of media shops reported on Wednesday after lawmakers in Congress had been briefed on its nature. It is nonetheless unclear if it could be nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered.
It is also unlikely to be a “house nuke” in a standard sense. It is considered designed to assault satellites, not targets on Earth — a element that White Home nationwide safety spokesperson John Kirby confirmed in a Thursday press briefing.
“We’re not speaking a couple of weapon that can be utilized to assault human beings or trigger bodily destruction right here on Earth,” Kirby mentioned. “That mentioned, we have been carefully monitoring this Russian exercise, and we are going to proceed to take it very significantly.”
Kirby added that the weapon is just not an “lively functionality” and hasn’t been deployed, aligning with reviews from The New York Occasions and CNN that it’s nonetheless in growth. Each shops cited US officers who weren’t named.
“And although Russia’s pursuit of this specific functionality is troubling, there isn’t a fast risk to anybody’s security,” Kirby mentioned.
Kirby did not specify what nuclear capabilities the brand new weapon would possibly possess.
“So nuclear vitality can be utilized for propulsion in an engineering sense. It can be used as a weapon,” he mentioned.
He declined to elaborate when pressed by reporters. “It is simply not prudent to try this,” Kirby mentioned.
However the spokesperson additionally mentioned the weapon would violate the Outer House Treaty of 1967, of which Russia continues to be a participant.
The treaty particularly bans the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in house, together with nuclear arms.
Notably, Russia has, within the final decade, been pulling out of its previous agreed-upon nuclear treaties, sparking issues that it might usher in a brand new Chilly Warfare period.
Kirby mentioned that if Russia ends its involvement within the Outer House Treaty, the US would not intend to observe go well with and violate the settlement.
“We’re a signatory to that treaty. We take our obligations beneath that treaty very significantly,” he mentioned.
An April 2023 report by the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research assessed that Russia is creating anti-satellite weapons however has not deployed them in its conflict towards Ukraine.
Ukraine depends closely on Starlink satellites for its communications. The US additionally makes use of an intensive community of satellites to keep up navy communications and management over its nuclear arsenal.
Intelligence on the brand new weapon grew to become the topic of alarm in Capitol Hill on Wednesday when GOP Home Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner issued an pressing assertion calling lawmakers to listen to a couple of “nationwide safety risk.”
However Home representatives later launched statements saying that the intel was no trigger for panic and that it didn’t talk about an pressing risk.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP through Getty Pictures
“It isn’t going to damage your Thursday,” Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who sits on the Home Intelligence Committee, advised reporters.
