UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia are set to face off over nuclear weapons in space on Wednesday at the United Nations Security Council, which is due to vote on a US-drafted resolution calling on countries to prevent an arms race in outer space.
Russia is expected to block the draft resolution, said some diplomats. The US move comes after it accused Moscow of developing an anti-satellite nuclear weapon to put in space, an allegation that Russia’s defense minister has flatly denied.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Japan’s UN Ambassador Yamazaki Kazuyuki said in a joint statement on Friday that they have been negotiating with Security Council members on the draft text for six weeks.
The text affirms the obligation of states to comply with the Outer Space Treaty and calls on countries “to contribute actively to the objective of the peaceful use of outer space and of the prevention of an arms race in outer space.”
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bars signatories – including Russia and the United States – from placing “in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.”
Russia and China are planning to first put an amendment to a vote in the council. The amendment echoes a 2008 proposal by the pair for a treaty banning “any weapons in outer space” and threats “or use of force against outer space objects.”
The amendment is not expected to be adopted, said diplomats. The amendment and the draft resolution each require at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, Britain or France to be adopted.
“Without our amendment, based on the General Assembly resolution adopted in December 2023, the text tabled by the US will be unbalanced, harmful and politicized,” deputy Russian UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told Reuters, adding that it would also undermine the Outer Space Treaty legal regime.
Polyanskiy said “all questions relating to this sphere should be considered by the full membership of States Parties to this Treaty and not by the UN Security Council members only.”
US intelligence officials, according to three people familiar with their findings, believe the Russian capability to be a space-based nuclear bomb whose electromagnetic radiation if detonated would disable vast networks of satellites.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said Russia has not yet deployed such a weapon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February that Russia was against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space.
Governments have increasingly viewed satellites in Earth’s orbit as crucial assets that enable an array of military capabilities on Earth, with space-based communications and satellite-connected drones in the war in Ukraine serving as recent examples of the outsized role of space in modern warfare.
Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.
US, Russia set for a showdown at UN over nuclear weapons in space
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US, Russia set for a showdown at UN over nuclear weapons in space
- The White House says Russia has not yet deployed such a weapon.
Nobel peace laureates who did not pick up their prize
PARIS: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who lives in hiding, is not the first Nobel Peace Prize winner who could not pick up their prize. Here are other notable absentees at the Oslo awards ceremony:
2023: Narges Mohammadi
The Iranian activist had to celebrate her Nobel Prize from a cell in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Mohammadi, who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the death penalty in Iran, was represented by her 17-year-old twins, both living in exile in France, who read a speech she managed to smuggle out of her cell.
She had been in prison since 2021 but was released in December 2024 for a limited period on medical leave.
2022: Ales Bialiatski
The Belarusian human rights campaigner was in jail. He was represented by his wife Natalia Pinchuk.
Bialiatski, the founder of Viasna — the main human rights defense organization in Belarus — was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison for “foreign currency trafficking.”
2010: Liu Xiaobo
The Chinese dissident was in prison serving an 11 year jail term for “subversion.” His chair remained symbolically empty, where the prize was placed.
His wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest after the prize was announced and his three brothers were blocked from leaving China.
A veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Liu died in 2017 of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital at the age of 61, after being transferred there from prison.
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar’s democracy champion won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize when she was under house arrest as part of a crackdown by the military leadership on the pro-democracy opposition.
Though given permission to travel, she declined due to fears of potentially not being able to return to her country.
Aung San Suu Kyi was represented at the ceremony by her two sons and her husband, who accepted the award on her behalf. Symbolically, an empty chair was again placed on the stage.
1983: Lech Walesa
The Polish trade union activist who forced authorities to recognize the communist bloc’s first and only free trade union, Solidarity (Solidarnosc) feared he would not be allowed back into Poland if he traveled to Oslo for the ceremony. His wife Danuta and his son represented him.
1975: Andrei Sakharov
The Soviet dissident and physicist was honored by the Nobel committee for his “fearless personal commitment in upholding the fundamental principles for peace between men.” Sakharov was barred by Soviet authorities from traveling to Norway and was represented by his wife Elena Bonner, also a rights activist.
1973: Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
The 1973 award, one of the most controversial in the history of the peace prize, was given in the absence of the two recipients, who had reached a Vietnam ceasefire agreement that soon failed.
Le Duc Tho turned down the prize, saying that the ceasefire was not respected. Kissinger did not go to Oslo for fear of demonstrations.
1935: Carl von Ossietzky
German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when he won the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize.
Von Ossietzky had been arrested three years earlier in a raid on opponents of Adolf Hitler following the Reichstag fire.
A German lawyer tricked his family into allowing him to pocket the prize money and was sentenced to two years of hard labor. Ossietzky died in captivity in 1938.
