NATO's ‘hysteria’ over Russia stalking their satellites is only to get more money – MPs

8 Feb, 2020 17:56

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FILE PHOTO: Conceptual illustration of a US satellite. © Reuters / NASA

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Claims that Russia is using its spacecraft to spy on NATO satellites have no real backing and are used to justify funding requests as the US and its allies are militarizing space, Russian MPs said.

Earlier this week, French General Andre Lanata, who is NATO's supreme allied commander transformation, sounded the alarm over a recently-launched Russian satellite synchronizing its orbit with an American surveillance spacecraft.

“It is a threat to our allies,” Lanata told the Washington Examiner. “It's a key question. We need to be sure that we give to our forces this space asset support.”

The commander went on, saying that space used to be considered “a safe haven,” but now, thanks to the actions of Russia and China, “it's not the case anymore.”

Washington and NATO have been increasingly accusing Moscow and Beijing of developing technologies for space warfare in order to cripple the US military communications and GPS networks, but as often happens the claims were never backed by any convincing proof.

“We can imagine many different ways and many different kinds of aggression in space,” Lanata said.

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A Russian satellite stalking his NATO counterpart really was a figment of the French general's imagination, Aleksey Chepa, the deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament, said, explaining that that the spacecraft in question was “a civilian satellite, which was carrying out activities needed for its own readjustment.”

The “hysteria” artificially raised by the NATO commanders is really directed at the parliaments of their countries in order to make them increase defense budgets, including military space programs, he added.

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Anton Morozov, another foreign affairs committee member, reminded that Russia consistently supports the demilitarization of space and its use for solely peaceful purposes.

He noted that Russian satellites can record the elements of American military infrastructure in space and the words of the NATO general should be viewed as “a revelation of own malign intentions.”

“They prove that… they [the US and NATO] keep militarizing space, which can lead to very sad consequences,” Morozov said.