MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. The risks of turning outer space into a real battleground have taken concrete shape due to US activity, Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department, said at a roundtable discussion on space militarization in the upper house of parliament on Thursday.
"Many goals, objectives and studies that were in place within that framework [the US Strategic Defense Initiative] and looked like something unbelievable 40 years ago, are still relevant for Washington and are already implemented in practice at a new round of technological development. As a result, the risks of turning outer space into a bridgehead of aggression and warfare have indeed taken particular shape," the senior diplomat pointed out.
Today, like in the 1980s, the United States and its allies are taking active steps to carry through doctrinal guidelines of deploying weapons in space and using outer space for warfare and, what’s more, not just for defensive purposes, he said.
"In addition, they do not stop trying to define outer space as a new arena of rivalry and conflicts between states while stipulating US dominance and superiority as the underlying goal and designating Russia and China as the fundamental opponents," the high-ranking diplomat stressed.