Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced alarm over President Trump’s plan to deploy space weapons as part of a nationwide missile defense shield called Golden Dome and expressed concerns that the new U.S. defenses will neutralize Moscow’s offensive nuclear forces, according to Russian state media reports.
Mr. Putin told a meeting of the Russian Security Council that the planned U.S. system would eliminate what he said was Moscow’s bid to maintain a status quo of offensive strategic arms.
“Particular attention should be given to plans to increase the strategic components of the U.S. missile defense system, including preparations for placing interceptors in outer space,” Mr. Putin said Sept. 22, according to the state-run Interfax agency.
“We will be working on the assumption that putting such destabilizing actions into practice is able to reduce to nothing our side’s efforts to maintain the status quo in offensive strategic weapons. And we will react accordingly,” he said.
Details on Golden Dome remain closely held within the Pentagon. The plan calls for deploying an integrated air and missile defense system by 2029 to protect the nation from missiles, aircraft and drones.
Initial plans call for building a four-layer defense with satellite-based weapons along with land-based defenses, including 11 short-range anti-missile batteries in the continental United States and in Alaska and Hawaii.
According to Pentagon briefing slides on Golden Dome disclosed last month, the system will include space-based missile interceptors, and missile warning and tracking satellites.
Plans include advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, according to the slides, that will integrate sensors and interceptors in speeding up detection and tracking.
Mr. Trump has said the system would be based on President Reagan’s 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative.
The briefing slides mention the canceled SDI weapon called Brilliant Pebbles that called for using space-based projectiles to defeat enemy missiles transiting through space.
Russia’s military has nearly completed a major strategic nuclear modernization program that has been underway since Mr. Putin announced in 2018 plans for several exotic and advanced strategic weapons.
The arms include an array of new and destabilizing weapons systems, including a heavy, multi-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile called Sarmat, several hypersonic missiles capable of evading missile defenses, new nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missiles and an underwater drone with megaton-class warheads called Poseidon.
Also included are plans by the Russian military to deploy an anti-satellite weapon in space that would use nuclear warheads to blast satellites. U.S. officials disclosed the plans in early 2024, though Russia denied them.
New Borei-class missile submarines also are being deployed with a total of 14 vessels planned. The submarines will be armed with new, six-warhead Bulava missiles.
The nuclear arms provide Moscow, which has threatened to use nuclear weapons against the West as part of its war in Ukraine, a strategic advantage in nuclear-strike capabilities.
China also is opposing Golden Dome as a threat to its large and expanding strategic missile forces.
An Air Force think tank report said Chinese objections include claims the missile shield will undermine strategic stability by weakening mutual deterrence — despite Beijing’s massive expansion of its own nuclear forces and missile programs.
Chinese Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army leaders fear that Golden Dome will employ “active launch suppression,” viewed by Beijing as a U.S. threat to carry out preemptive strikes on Chinese nuclear missile forces.
A Defense Intelligence Agency report made public in May identified threats posed by China’s large force of ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles as key to building the new Golden Dome.
Mr. Putin’s concerns about U.S. space-based weapons under Golden Dome come as the Defense Intelligence Agency said Moscow has several types of space weaponry.
“Russia is focusing its available resources on developing counterspace capabilities, ranging from jamming to malicious cyber activities to direct-ascent and orbital antisatellite systems,” the DIA said in congressional testimony last year.
A Congressional Research Service report published in May said the Russian military is planning for the use of military force through a system of “strategic operations,” including large-scale as well as the limited use of nuclear weapons.
Fears of a missile-neutralizing new system using ground, air and space weapons prompted the Russian leader recently to seek an extension of the New START strategic arms treaty that Moscow. Russia suspended compliance with in 2023 following U.S. complaints the treaty was being violated by the Russians.
Mr. Putin said extending New START for a year past its expiration date on Feb. 5 could contribute to a strategic arms dialogue with the United States.
“The system of Soviet-American and Russian-American agreements regulating nuclear missile and strategic defense arms has been practically entirely dismantled step by step,” he noted, according to the official TASS agency.
The Trump administration has sought to resume arms control talks that include both Russia and China. Beijing, however, so far has refused to join nuclear arms talks.
Mr. Putin also issued a veiled threat that Russia is positioned to respond to “any existing and emerging threats, respond to them not just in word but by using military-technical measures.”
Russia is ending its moratorium on deploying ground-launched intermediate-range and short-range missiles.
“This was a necessary step, dictated by the need to adequately respond to programs deploying similar U.S. and other Western-made weapons in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, which directly threaten Russia’s security,” Mr. Putin said.
The U.S. has temporarily deployed the Typhon missile system in the Philippines and Australia and this month in Japan.
The missile system can fire SM-6 anti-ship missiles and 1,000-mile-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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