--- title: Russia’s ‘Space-Based Weapon’ Raises Fresh Fears About an Old Threat | TIME description: The White House on Thursday confirmed reports that Russia is pursuing an “anti-satellite capability” that poses a serious national security concern but is not an immediate threat to Americans' safety. canonical: https://time.com/video/TcXPGX33/ og:title: Russia’s ‘Space-Based Weapon’ Raises Fresh Fears About an Old Threat og:description: The White House on Thursday confirmed reports that Russia is pursuing an “anti-satellite capability” that poses a serious national security concern but is not an immediate threat to Americans' safety. og:url: https://time.com/video/TcXPGX33/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/TcXPGX33/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Russia’s ‘Space-Based Weapon’ Raises Fresh Fears About an Old Threat twitter:description: The White House on Thursday confirmed reports that Russia is pursuing an “anti-satellite capability” that poses a serious national security concern but is not an immediate threat to Americans' safety. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/TcXPGX33/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * U.S. # Russia’s ‘Space-Based Weapon’ Raises Fresh Fears About an Old Threat > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Russia’s ‘Space-Based Weapon’ Raises Fresh Fears About an Old Threat [Watch (HLS stream): Russia’s ‘Space-Based Weapon’ Raises Fresh Fears About an Old Threat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/TcXPGX33.m3u8) (2:57)  _Published 2024-02-15. The White House on Thursday confirmed reports that Russia is pursuing an “anti-satellite capability” that poses a serious national security concern but is not an immediate threat to Americans' safety._ --- Feb 16, 2024 9:57 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Should You Fear Russia?](/video/xZky4liD/) ### Should You Fear Russia? [Uber Hires Hackers To Prevent Not-So-Immediate Threat](/video/GEzGRPTa/) ### Uber Hires Hackers To Prevent Not-So-Immediate Threat [UK Raises Terror Threat Level](/video/qirazduu/) ### UK Raises Terror Threat Level --- ## Transcript I know the German Turner's letter to house members and its subsequent post on social media about a national security threat has prompted a lot of questions. I want I am limited by how much I can share about the specific nature of the threat. I can confirm that it is related to an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing. I want to be clear about a couple of things right off the bat. First this is not an active capability that's been deployed and do Russians pursuit of this particular capabilities troubling. There was no immediate threat to anyone's safety. We are not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on our that said we've been closely monitoring the activity and we will continue to take it very seriously President. Biden has been kept fully informed and regularly informed by his National Security team including today. He has directed a series of initial actions including additional briefings to Congressional leaders direct diplomatic engagement with Russia allies and our partners as well. And with other countries around the world who have interests take the intelligence Community has serious concerns about a about a broad declassification of this intelligence. They also assessed that starting with private engagement rather than immediately publicizing. The intelligence could be a much more effective approach. We agree with that which is consistent, of course with the manner in which we have conducted downgrades of information in the past. This Administration has put a lot of focus on doing that in a strategic way a deliberate way in particular when it comes to Russia, I would tell you that this is still in development. I'm sorry still capability. They're developing. We are still analyzing the information that's available to that. I would not speak definitively about our strategic deterrent capability one way or the other. We just don't we don't talk about that publicly. But we're taking this Potential Threat very seriously and we are examining what led the best next steps are and what our options might be. I want to reiterate it is not an active capability and it has not yet been deployed. We will engage directly and plan to engage directly with the Russians about this and as well as allies and partners in those I said will continue to work through what our next steps in our approaches might be I don't want to minimize. Potential here for disruption. Should there be an anti-satellite capability of any significance? It could affect Services here on Earth. There's no question about that. That's why we are taking this. So seriously, we certainly we're not we're not in a position where we're trusting what's coming out what they say. We watch what they do and we analyze what they do and then we make our own decisions on our own policy decisions about what we're going to do based on their actions. 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