


Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping called President Donald Trump‘s plan for a “Golden Dome” air defense system “deeply destabilizing,” after in-person talks between the two leaders.
Trump’s vision for the Golden Dome is that the military will create a multi-layered defense shield that would be able to protect the continental United States to deter and even intercept any aerial attack against the homeland.
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“The recently announced large-scale program ‘Golden (Iron) Dome for America’ is also deeply destabilizing in nature,” a joint statement from Xi and Putin said. “It envisages the creation of an unlimited, global, deeply layered and multi-sphere missile defense system for the purpose of protection against any missile threats, including all types of missiles of ‘equal and comparable in strength adversaries.'”
Xi is currently in Moscow with Putin, and they agreed to deepen their strategic partnership, as they celebrate Victory Day, which is the anniversary of the end of World War II. It comes as the Trump administration is trying to convince Moscow to end its war in Ukraine and is in the middle of a tariff war with Beijing.
“This means a complete and final refusal to recognize the inseparable relationship between strategic offensive and strategic defense weapons, which is one of the central and fundamental principles of maintaining global strategic stability,” their statement continued. “In addition, this project gives additional impetus to the further development of kinetic and non-kinetic means of pre-launch destruction of missile weapons and the infrastructure that ensures their use.”
Both countries have rapidly expanded their space programs in recent years as they attempt to close the gap strategically between themselves and the United States. Some of the capabilities are space-based, while others are ground-based.
“The adversary is quickly shrinking that gap, and we have got to change the way we approach space pretty rapidly,” Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, said in December, adding that the U.S. is now seeing “a new steady state set of behaviors that we haven’t seen in the past, the adversaries has become very emboldened to mess with our space capabilities.”
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U.S. officials also acknowledged last year that Moscow is developing a satellite that can carry a nuclear device, even as Putin and Xi accuse the U.S. of space aggression.
“Russia is also developing a concerning anti-satellite capability related to a new satellite carrying a nuclear device that Russia is developing,” then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Dr. John Plumb told lawmakers last year. “This capability could pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe, as well as to the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend upon.”