UPDATE
According to the ministry, the test took place on Monday and hit a Soviet-era Celina-D type reconnaissance satellite, which has been in orbit since 1982. This information corresponds with assertions made by Western media that the target was Kosmos-1408, an Electronic and Signals Intelligence satellite.
Russia described the decision to conduct the test as a planned activity to strengthen its defense capabilities and a way to prevent “the possibility of sudden damage to the country’s security in the space sphere and on the ground.”
Blinken attacked Moscow for claiming to oppose “the weaponization of outer space” while simultaneously sending a missile to destroy a satellite.In response, the Russian Defense Ministry slammed Washington as “hypocritical,” while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Washington itself was responsible for an arms race in space.
Last year, Lavrov called for rules that would prevent the placement of weapons in space.“The plans of the US, as well as those of France and NATO as a whole, to place weapons in outer space are taking shape,” he said at the time. “We are convinced that it is not too late to develop measures acceptable for all to prevent confrontation in outer space.”
ARTICLE PUBLISHED ON NOVEMBER, 16, 2021
by Defense One (Russia Today’s article below)
The U.S. government has condemned a Russian anti-satellite missile launch that blew up a Russian satellite on Monday, generating debris that now endangers the International Space Station.
“Today, miles above us, there are American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station. What the Russians did today, with these 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris, poses a risk not only to those astronauts, not only to those cosmonauts but to satellites of all nations,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. Price added that the impact also generated hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris too small to be tracked.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the United States was given no advance notice of the launch.
“We watch closely the kinds of capabilities that Russia seems to want to develop which could pose a threat not just to our national security interest, but the security of other spacefaring nations,” Kirby said.
Last December, Russia test-launched an anti-satellite missile that did not blow anything up. At the time, U.S. Space Command said Russia’s repeat tests of the direct-ascent missile and of a co-orbital anti-satellite weapon, showed it was intent on weaponizing space. If it ever used the direct ascent ASAT on a low-orbit satellite, it could “irrevocably pollute the space domain,” Space Command said at the time.