MOSCOW. Jan 17 (Interfax-AVN) - There are fears in Moscow that the United States may deploy armaments in space in the future.
"The U.S. refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the fact that the word "limited" has disappeared from statements of representatives of the American administration about the developing national missile defense system, may be a sign of Washington's future plans to deploy armaments in space," a military diplomat told Interfax-Military News Agency in Moscow on Thursday.
"It is impossible "to create an efficient missile defense system without putting armaments into space," the diplomat said. "A missile defense system made up of ground-based countermeasures against intercontinental ballistic missiles cannot guarantee the protection of the national territory."
"The United States will quit the moratorium and start nuclear tests depending on when the testing grounds in Nevada are ready," the diplomat said.
The U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and the development of the national missile defense system "will not create any military threats to Russia within the next ten years," the diplomat said. "However, the United States may obtain a certain superiority in the strategic sphere after that period and by putting armaments into space."
Now that the United States has withdrawn from the ABM Treaty, "Russia is also free from a number of earlier agreements," the diplomat said. He said that splitting warheads might be installed on Russia's mono-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"Now that we are building new relations with the United States, we should drop the former limits and install splitting ballistic missiles that have mono-warheads]," the diplomat said.
The installation of three nuclear warheads instead of one on the Topol system "is a relatively cheap but efficient measure, and it won't present any technical difficulties for Russia," the diplomat said. It is also possible to install splitting warheads on missiles "within the limits of reduction of strategic the Russian administration," he noted.