Celestial Battlefield: Russia’s Future in Space and the Lessons of the Ukraine War
Dr. Pavel Luzin
Forthcoming
Understanding Russia’s future in space and its views on celestial warfare has important policy implications for the United States and its NATO allies. Russia remains one of a handful of space-based superpowers capable of challenging the United States in space, viewing it as a strategic arena to contest and degrade U.S. superiority.
Russia and China are the only two peer competitors of the United States that can launch missiles capable of destroying American satellites as both countries retain counter-space technology. Since April 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter space, Russia has long regarded itself to be a dominant space power. Moscow is desperate to keep pace with the United States and other leading space powers and remains more determined than ever to challenge the United States in space. It is developing and launching its own military satellites during the past decade in a bid to continue improving its communication, early warning, reconnaissance, and strike capabilities. It also is relentlessly refining and improving its military capabilities in space, particularly in the field of anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) capabilities.
Russia demonstrated its military capabilities in space in 2021 when it conducted ASAT tests proving that the Kremlin remains still capable of challenging the United States despite its vast superiority in commercial and military-based space assets. Russian forces are capable of using temporary jamming against GPS and satellite communication signals like Starlink in chosen locations. Moscow seeks to develop its anti-satellite camouflage measures, especially against commercial optical satellites.
Russia seeks to keep pace with the United States through its civilian and military space programs by influencing the political, economic, and military environment where the U.S. conducts its space activity. Given the fact that Russia considers itself to be a Great Power, as well as being one of the leading space actors in the world, it openly flaunts its intentions to undermine U.S. global leadership and the rules-based global order. Despite two years of war in Ukraine and an array of sanctions imposed by the West, Russia continues to invest immense resources into its military program in space which shows no signs of dissipating. After three years of warfare in Ukraine Russia is also obtaining important lessons from the war which will affect its future military posture in space and these lessons learned have important repercussions for the US and its NATO allies.
Twice in the past year Congressman Mike Turner, Chairman of the House Intelligence Community has voiced his public concerns about the Russian threat to the United States in space indicating that President Putin has plans to conduct space operations against the United States, offering a rare glimpse at US concerns over the challenges Russia poses to American security interests in space. Given growing Congressional concern and that of the US intelligence community to Russian efforts to militarize space there is more urgency to the need to understand Russia's short and long-term space strategy, especially as it may threaten US military capabilities in space.
The Saratoga Foundation’s special project will shed light on Russia's trajectory as a space power and its evolving approach to celestial warfare. It will assess advances in Russian space technologies and industrial development despite Western sanctions and offer policy suggestions on how the US can act more proactively in the face of the Russian threat.