Reports that Russia is seeking to deploy space-based nuclear weapons to menace America’s extensive satellite network may be part of a broader mission by President Putin to weaponize outer space.

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Mike Turner, warned in an ominous statement on Wednesday that President Biden should declassify intelligence related to a “serious national security threat.” ABC News reported that the threat is related to Russian advances on a new, space-based nuclear weapon designed to destabilize America’s satellites. 

Congressman Andy Ogles, who is also a Republican and a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, is now asking Speaker Johnson to investigate Mr. Turner for releasing his statement, saying it was done with “reckless disregard” and was intended to pressure Congress to approve more funding for Ukraine and the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. A supplemental bill including $60 billion in aid for Kyiv was just passed by the Senate and is under review by the House. The Ukraine issue, as well as the FISA renewal, has divided the House Republican caucus.

It is unclear whether the alleged national security threat is a nuclear weapon, or a nuclear powered anti-satellite weapon, and whether it would be launched from space. “Putting any kind of nuclear power in space,” a researcher on nuclear nonproliferation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Andrea Stricker, tells the Sun, “would risk that it would cause some kind of a nuclear explosion.”

If detonated, the weapon could severely damage numerous satellites, consequently affecting civilian communications, space surveillance, and the military command-and-control operations of America and its allies. 

Given Mr. Putin’s nuclear ambitions, the alleged Russian advancement on space might be part of a grander political plot. This threat could trigger fears of nuclear escalation in the Ukraine war, fueling political opposition to the foreign aid bill in the House. 

“Putin is all too aware of the West’s fears of nuclear escalation and has relied on it to manipulate Ukraine’s supporters in Washington,” a research fellow at the FDD, Ivana Stradner, tells the Sun. “It is high time for Washington and its European allies to see through Putin’s games and refuse to be manipulated.”

“I don’t see this latest capability so much as an attempt to deter U.S. aid for Ukraine,” the director of FDD’s program on Russia, John Hardie, tells the Sun, “but more as another tool to threaten Western satellites in the event of an open conflict with the United States and NATO.”

The war in Ukraine might be spurring Moscow to increase its investment in nuclear-powered space-based electronic warfare capability, Mr. Hardie ventures. American satellites have given Ukraine an advantage on the ground, so Russia officials might see a need to invest in its own counter space capabilities. 

“The Russian military has long recognized that space is central to U.S. military operations,” Mr. Hardie says, “and so it has developed a range of kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to destroy or interfere with enemy satellites and other space-related systems.”

Mr. Putin appears to understand that nuclear threats resonate with Western policymakers. The legacy of the Cold War looms large in the American psyche, as current debates about whether the country should further support Kyiv’s war effort often hinge upon a fear of nuclear escalation with Moscow. “The prospect of a nuclear attack,” Ms. Stradner says, “automatically triggers an Armageddon scenario in their collective memory.”

Under Mr. Putin’s rule, Russia has been shirking its commitment to limit the deployment of nuclear warheads and launchers, mandated by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which Russia and the U.S. signed in 2010 and agreed to extend to 2026. “One of the few things that the United States and the Soviet Union could agree on back in the sixties was not to put nuclear weapons in space,” Ms. Stricker says. “For a very simple reason — it would affect everyone if something happened.”