Is Vladimir Putin on the brink of taking war into space?

It also recently proposed plans to create a coordinated European military space command,alongside countries including Austria,Switzerland,and Luxembourg,to supplement existing European Union space defence,including the secure communications system IRIS2.

Meanwhile,France and Poland have recently agreed to collaborate on a telecommunications satellite for the Polish military – a key element of defence in Europe,given Poland’s position on the border with Ukraine.

Part of Europe’s aim to develop its own satellite services is due to concerns about its total reliance on Starlink,given worries about the unpredictability of its owner,Elon Musk.

In Britain,the 2025 Ministry of Defence’s Strategic Defence Review claimed the nation needs to focus more on space domains in defence.

The report said that space was ‘a critical national infrastructure sector,a site of growing competition,and a domain that is central to warfighting’. It claimed the ‘combined operational satellite fleets of China and Russia grew by 70% in 2019-21’ and warned that ‘both countries have sought to weaponise space’.

The report also claimed that ‘defence must improve its ability to deter threats to,and if necessary protect,its interest in space’.