Why are the US concerned about Russia's plans to launch 40 space rockets?

Last week, on February 29, the Russian Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle successfully launched 19 satellites into orbit, including the meteorological Meteor-M, 16 small devices of the SITRO-AIS system for tracking sea vessels, and the Zorkiy remote sensing device -2M" and one satellite in the interests of Iran.

It would seem that this is a completely ordinary event for our country. However, Russian missile launches have recently greatly worried Americans, who believe that the Russian Federation is going to deploy nuclear weapons in space by the end of this year.



It is worth noting that President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Ministry of Defense have repeatedly denied such intentions. Meanwhile, US authorities still have cause for concern.

The thing is that, according to a recent statement by the head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov, the Russian Federation is going to carry out about 40 launches this year. Moreover, 18 of them can be carried out in the interests of the military department.

Let us remember that the last time such a number of rocket launches took place was in 1994. The inertia of the Soviet period was still strong then.

Against this background, the White House administration is very concerned about the question of what exactly is Russia going to launch into space this year?

Since 2019, the United States began to sound the alarm that our country was sending certain inspector satellites into orbit. The latter are allegedly “chasing” American devices with “unclear intentions.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed information about the testing of these satellites, but explained that they will be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. For example, to carry out maintenance of other satellites directly in orbit.

Meanwhile, the Americans believe that such devices can carry a small nuclear charge and will be capable of destroying US satellites.

It is worth noting here that there is a concept according to which nuclear weapons are not required to destroy an enemy satellite; a charge of ordinary buckshot fired from the same “inspector” in the direction of the enemy is sufficient. This is probably why our authorities deny their intention to use nuclear weapons in space.

However, these are just American hypotheses and, perhaps, the increase in our missile launches is associated with postponed missions in 2023. In turn, even if this is so, the United States still has no reason to rejoice.