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from https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-developing-counterspace-weapons-breathtaking-185130014.html

China developing space weapons at ‘breathtaking’ pace
Danielle Sheridan
April 24, 2024·2 min read
156

Shenzhou-18 crewed spaceship
China's range of counterspace weapons 'a threat to US space
capabilities' - Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua News Agency/eyevine

China is developing anti-satellite weapons as part of a “breathtaking” military expansion, US defence experts have warned.

Gen Stephen Whiting, the head of the US Space Command, said Beijing had “tripled the number of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites on orbit” in just six years.

“Frankly, the People’s Republic of China is moving at breathtaking speed
in space and they are rapidly developing a range of counter-space
weapons to hold at risk our space capabilities,” Gen Whiting said.

Counter-space attacks range from disruption of GPS signals or spoofing,
to destroying a satellite by detonating a missile in space.

Experts have long warned of Beijing’s misuse of anti-satellite weapons
and the need to clean up space from an environmental perspective. Debris
still lingers in space from the ballistic missile China fired in 2007 to destroy an orbiting satellite.

China using space ‘to improve lethality’
Gen Whiting added that China had used “space capabilities to improve the lethality, the precision and the range of their terrestrial forces”.

Speaking at the US embassy in London, Col Raj Agrawal, commander of
America’s Space Delta 2 force, also warned that China had shown a “clear intent” to project its power through space and stressed the “precision” with which it could strike targets thousands of miles away, beyond the
curve of the Earth.

Lt Col Travis Anderson, head of a Space Force intelligence squadron,
also said its fleet of 350 satellites had “increased by 300 per cent
since 2018”.

“It allows them to look into the Indo-Pacific and find the US and allied forces’ ships,” he said.

Last week, Beijing announced the creation of an information support
force within the People’s Liberation Army, which will reform the way
cyber, information, logistics and space operations are run.

Gen Whiting said these changes “further enhance the importance of space
and information warfare and cyber operations” in China’s military.

‘Serious national security threat’
Beijing has invested billions of dollars into its military-run space
programme in an effort to catch up with the United States and Russia.

In February, US intelligence indicated that Russia had a desire to put a nuclear weapon into space, in what was described as a “serious national security threat”.

The intelligence warned the weapon could be used to target Western
satellites in space which could disrupt communications and military
targeting systems.

Last year, Gen B Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations of the US
Space Force, said the danger posed by China’s anti-satellite missile capabilities was one of the biggest challenges it faced.

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The Daily Beast
Russians Plunged into Darkness After Monster Drone Attack
Dan Ladden-Hall
Fri, May 17, 2024 at 8:25 AM PDT·2 min read
145

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
Ukraine launched a massive drone attack against military and energy
facilities in Russia and the occupied peninsula Crimea overnight, with
Moscow saying Friday that over 100 unmanned weapons had been involved in
the operation.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its forces had intercepted and
destroyed 102 UAVs over four different regions while another six drone
boats were taken out in the Black Sea. While the ministry did not reveal
the extent of the damage from the attack, multiple explosions were
reported in the Russian city of Novorossiysk and the Kremlin-backed
governor of Sevastopol said a substation was damaged and the power
supply was disrupted.

Russia Suffers One of Its Most Deadly Attacks of the War

A source from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told the Kyiv
Independent that the assault was a joint operation conducted by the SBU
and Ukraine’s military intelligence. “Today’s operation proved that the Russians are unable to protect their main naval bases in Sevastopol and Novorossiysk,” the source said.

Residents in Novorossiysk in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region said local
oil infrastructure was attacked and shared videos online in which blasts
can be heard and air defenses are seen operating. Krasnodar Krai
Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said 10 drones were shot down, creating
“local fires” but not causing any casualties, according to preliminary information. “I ask Novorossiysk residents to remain calm and not post
photos and videos of the operation of our air defense systems on social networks,” he wrote on Telegram.

Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, separately claimed that
debris from “downed UAVs fell on the substation,” leading to a partial blackout. Early Friday, he said that the power outages would last “about
a day” while workers restore the power grid. He later announced the cancellation of classes in “all schools, secondary vocational education institutions and kindergartens,” and said the city would take measures
to save energy during the repairs. That included the cancelation of
trolleybus services and keeping lights in the city and shopping centers off.

Ukraine has been attacking infrastructure and military targets on
Russian soil for the past few months. Kyiv is currently also dealing
with a major new Russian offensive launched earlier this month in
Ukraine’s northeastern territory, sparking fears that Kharkiv—Ukraine’s second-largest city—could soon fall.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters during a
visit to China that his assaults on the Kharkiv region were launched in response to Ukrainian shelling on Russia’s Belgorod region. “I have said publicly that if it continues, we will be forced to create a security
zone, a sanitary zone,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “That’s what we are doing.”

Putin also said that, for the moment, there are no plans to capture the
city of Kharkiv.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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