Putin takes his war to space. What can go wrong?

Imagine life without mobile phones, the internet, and aviation. All these can suddenly go off and stay off for months. Space is turning into a new battlefield as Russia has been accused of posing a threat to German and British satellites. According to a recent CNN report, Germany and the United Kingdom have warned of the growing threat posed by Russian and Chinese space satellites, which have been regularly spotted spying on satellites used by Western powers. The countries have in recent weeks highlighted frequent instances of Russia stalking, jamming and interfering with their satellites in space. “Russia’s actions, especially in space, pose a fundamental threat to us all. A threat we can no longer ignore,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told a Berlin conference of space industry leaders in September.

Targeting communications satellites can impact things like satellite imagery, telecoms and broadband satellite internet access. Disrupting navigation and positioning systems can impact military operations as well as civil aviation. More than 12,000 operating satellites now orbit the planet, playing a critical role not just in broadcast communications but also in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains, as per an AP report. They are also key to early launch-detection efforts, which can warn of approaching missiles. That makes them a significant national security vulnerability, and a prime target for anyone looking to undermine an adversary’s economy or military readiness, or deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did when they hijacked television signals to Ukraine this year and telecast Russian military parade.

Pistorius noted that two Russian reconnaissance satellites were recently spotted tracking two IntelSat satellites, which are used by the German Armed Forces and its allies. IntelSat is a commercial satellite services provider whose fleet is used by governments and companies in the US and Europe. “Russia and China have rapidly expanded their space warfare capabilities in recent years: They can jam, blind, manipulate, or kinetically destroy satellites,” Pistorius added, announcing a multi-billion-dollar boost in funding for German space programs. The head of the UK Space Command also sounded the alarm, saying that Russian satellites are stalking British assets in space, as well as jamming them on a “weekly” basis. “They’ve got payloads on board that can see our satellites and are trying to collect information from them,” Major General Paul Tedman told the BBC last month. Jamming is conducted using ground-based infrastructure. Russia has spent years developing electronic warfare capabilities amid the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. But Russia also vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for member states to not develop space-based nuclear weapons in 2024. China abstained from voting. NATO declared in 2019 that space is an “operational domain” for the transatlantic alliance and years later announced that Article 5 would apply in space. Article 5 is the principle that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all members. Analysts at RAND have argued, though, that NATO needs to “throttle up” on its space enterprise or risk falling short at a critical time.

Armageddon in space
More concerning than regular satellite warfare are nukes in space. In 2024, then US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said Russia was developing nuclear anti-satellite armaments. Turner called on then president Biden to crank up the pressure to prevent Moscow from launching the weapon which could wipe out everything from GPS to cell service and the internet, eliminating many of the conveniences of modern life.

As per an AP report US national security officials say Russia is developing a nuclear, space-based weapon designed to take out virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit at once. The weapon would combine a physical attack that would ripple outward, destroying more satellites, while the nuclear component is used to fry their electronics. U.S. officials declassified information about the weapon after Turner issued the public warning about the technology.

Turner said such a weapon could render low-Earth orbit unusable for satellites for as long as a year. If it were used, the effects would be devastating: potentially leaving the U.S. and its allies vulnerable to economic upheaval and even a nuclear attack. Russia and China also would lose satellites, though they are believed to be less reliant on the same kinds of satellites as the U.S. Turner compared the weapon, which is not yet ready for deployment, to Sputnik, the Russian satellite that launched the space age in 1957. “If this anti-satellite nuclear weapon would be put in space, it would be the end of the space age,” Turner said. “It should never be permitted to go into outer space. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in space.”

Why is Putin likely to use a space nuke?
Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, now stretching into its third year, has exposed the limits of its conventional military power. To offset this weakness, Moscow has focused on developing ways to disrupt the satellites that underpin U.S. military operations. Historically, this meant pursuing non-nuclear antisatellite (ASAT) systems, but the U.S. effort to deploy vast networks of smaller satellites, similar to Ukraine’s use of Starlink during the war, has made such weapons less effective. As a result, Russia appears to be reconsidering nuclear-armed ASAT capabilities, as per a Carnegie report.

Although President Vladimir Putin would recognise that detonating a nuclear device in space carries enormous risks, he might see it as less dangerous than other options in a crisis, the report says. However, such an attack would wipe out satellites belonging not only to Western militaries but also to other nations, including China and India, and would severely disrupt civilian systems—causing widespread chaos on Earth.

"But, for Putin, these consequences might seem much less costly than either losing a war to the United States—remember what happened to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi?—or detonating a nuclear weapon in the Earth’s atmosphere," the report says.

Where does India stand in space warfare?
India's efforts to develop space warfare capacity appears to be aimed at defending itself from Chinese threats. In March this year, a startling revelation made by the US pointed at advancements in space warfare: Chinese defence satellites had practiced “dogfights” in low Earth orbits in 2024. United States Vice Chief of Space Operations General Michael Guetlein said, "“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control. That’s what we call dogfighting in space. They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another.”

A dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Now, dogfights have reached space too where satellites fight like fighter jets.

Identifying the satellites involved in the reported military exercise in space, a US military spokesperson confirmed that the “dogfights” took place in 2024. The officer added that there were five satellites involved with three of them Shiyan-24C experimental satellites while the remaining two were experimental spacecraft, the Shijian-605 A and B.

Two months later, in May, it was reported that India too practised a sort of dogfight in space. India quietly pulled off a historic space manoeuvre of its own -- one that married sophisticated scientific finesse with nuanced strategic signalling. On its SPADEX (Space Docking Experiment) mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully executed a high-speed satellite rendezvous in space, showcasing not only technical capability but future preparedness in the new frontier of orbital defence.

The SPADEX mission was first initiated to develop autonomous docking and undocking of two satellites, the manoeuvres which are the backbone of long-duration space missions, space station activities and servicing satellites. The two satellites were manoeuvred into synchronised, high-speed contact at orbital speeds of 28,800 kmph -- approximately 28 times the speed of a commercial airliner. Flying at such velocities, even the slightest miscalculation can result in disastrous consequences, and hence, this was an accomplishment of gigantic technical sophistication. Similar to fighter jets' aerial combat training, the satellites gradually closed in on each other under controlled conditions, pushing the boundaries of orbital control, real-time communication and autonomous control systems. Although no weapons were used, the exercise replicates the manoeuvring accuracy that would be required in future space wars.

In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a special announcement that India had successfully tested its first anti-satellite missile system, code-named 'Mission Shakti'. "India has entered its name as an elite space power. An anti-satellite weapon ASAT successfully targeted a live satellite on a low Earth orbit," PM Modi said. He also stated that shooting down a LEO satellite is a rare achievement and was completed successfully within three minutes of launch.

India is only the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to have such a space warfare capability. Though it lags the three countries in this domain by far, it is making rapid progress. It is developing a "military space doctrine" amid China continuing to develop weapons - direct ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital satellites and electronic warfare - to contest or deny access to space.