WASHINGTON – The United States has informed Congress and its allies in Europe about Russian advances on a new, space-based nuclear weapon designed to threaten America’s extensive satellite network, according to current and former officials briefed on the matter.

Such a satellite-killing weapon, if deployed, could destroy civilian communications, surveillance from space and military command-and-control operations by the US and its allies.

A former official said that at the moment, the US does not have the ability to counter such a weapon and defend its satellites.

Officials said the new intelligence, which they did not describe in detail, raised serious questions about whether Russia was preparing to abandon the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which bans all orbital nuclear weapons.

But since Russia does not appear close to deploying the weapon, they said, it is not considered an urgent threat.

The intelligence was made public, in part, in a cryptic announcement on Feb 14 by Representative Michael Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

He called on the Biden administration to declassify the information without saying specifically what it was.

But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called such reports a “malicious fabrication” of the US, Russian state-owned news agency Tass reported on Feb 15.

ABC News reported earlier that the intelligence had to do with Russian space-based, anti-satellite nuclear weaponry.

Current and former officials said the launch of the anti-satellite weapon did not appear imminent, but that there was a limited window of time, which they did not define, to prevent its deployment.

Callback to Star Trek

Concerns about placing nuclear weapons in space go back 50 years; it was even a sub-theme of episodes of the science-fiction television series Star Trek in the late 1960s, just as the treaty was coming into effect. The US experimented with versions of the technology, but never deployed them. Russia has been developing its space-based capabilities for decades.

US military officials have warned that both Russia and China are moving towards greater militarisation of space, as all three superpowers work on ways to blind the others.

A report released in 2023 highlighted Russia’s development of weapons to blind other satellites but noted that Moscow had refrained from using the full range of anti-satellite capabilities it had developed.

Deploying a nuclear weapon in space would be a significant advancement in Russian technology and a potentially dramatic escalation.

Russia has been exiting many Cold War arms control treaties, seeing them as a restraint on its most important source of military power.

Mr Turner’s statement, and his decision to share the information with others in Congress, set Washington abuzz about what the intelligence was.

But the statement infuriated White House officials, who feared the loss of important sources of information on Russia.

While Mr Turner has been an ally to the White House on Ukraine aid, his remarks became the latest flashpoint in strained relations between the Biden administration and congressional Republicans.

The intelligence was developed in recent days, and while it is important, officials said it was not a break-the-glass kind of warning of any imminent threat. But Mr Turner urged its release.

“I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the administration and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat,” Mr Turner said.

His committee took the unorthodox move of voting on Feb 12 to make the information available to all members of Congress – a step that alarmed some officials, because it is not clear in what context, if any, the intelligence in the panel’s possession was presented.

In a note to lawmakers, the House Intelligence Committee said the intelligence was about a “destabilising foreign military capability”.

Capitol Hill is mired in a bitter political stand-off over whether the US should be mobilising resources to counter Russian threats to Ukraine, a cause that most Democrats and some Republicans – including Mr Turner – have maintained is essential to protecting US national security interests.

But a majority of Republican members of the House, including Speaker Mike Johnson, reject calls to put the Senate-passed foreign aid package with US$60.1 billion (S$81 billion) for Ukraine to a vote on the House floor.

Former president Donald Trump has egged on Republican opposition, saying at the weekend that he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to any North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country that had not spent enough money on its own defence.

Other officials said Mr Turner was making more of the new intelligence than would ordinarily have been expected, perhaps to create pressure to prod the House to take up the supplemental funding request for Ukraine that the Senate passed this week.

That measure, providing military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, faces an uncertain prospect in the House.

While many Republicans oppose additional funding, Mr Turner is an outspoken advocate of more assistance to Ukraine and recently visited its capital, Kyiv.

New Cold War

Shortly after Mr Turner’s announcement, Mr Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser, entered the White House press room to discuss the importance of continued funding for Ukraine’s military.

But Mr Sullivan declined to address a reporter’s question about the substance of Mr Turner’s announcement, saying only that he was set to meet Mr Turner on Feb 15.

“We scheduled a briefing for the House members of the Gang of Eight tomorrow,” Mr Sullivan said, referring to a group of congressional leaders from both parties.

“That’s been on the books. So I am a bit surprised that congressman Turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to go sit with him alongside our intelligence and defence professionals tomorrow.”

The Outer Space Treaty was one of the first major arms control treaties negotiated between the US and the then Soviet Union, and one of the last remaining in place.

If Russia exits the space treaty and lets the New Start treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons expire in February 2026 – as seems likely – it could touch off a new arms race, of the kind not seen since the depths of the Cold War.

“Ending the space treaty could open the floodgates for other countries to put nuclear weapons in space as well,” said Mr Steven Andreasen, a nuclear expert at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Minneapolis.

“Once you have orbital nuclear weapons, you can use them for more than taking out satellites.” NYTIMES, REUTERS