US warns Russia over satellites threats – DW – 10/28/2022

Washington has warned Moscow against shooting down US satellites after Russian threats that it might target them.

“I would just say that any attack on US infrastructure will be met with a response and will be met with a response appropriate to the threat that’s posed to our infrastructure,” US National Security Council communications director John Kirby said Thursday.

A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official had earlier said that commercial satellites from the United States and its allies could become legitimate targets for Russia if they were involved in the war in Ukraine.

“Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, was quoted as saying by TASS.

“We are talking about the involvement of components of civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, by the United States and its allies in armed conflicts,” Vorontsov was quoted as saying at the United Nations.

Vorontsov did not mention any specific satellite companies, though billionaire Elon Musk said earlier this month that his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds.”

Musk said last week that SpaceX’s Starlink services have not received any funding from the US Department of Defense. Starlink terminals are used in Ukraine by both the military and civilian population.

Here are the other main headlines from the war in Ukraine on Thursday, October 27:

‘Shelling will not break us,’ Zelenskyy says

The Ukrainian president’s daily video address was filmed outside, in the dark, on Thursday marking a change from its usual setting.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had shot down 23 Russian-launched drones in the past two days. He was shown standing next to one of the downed pieces of deadly machinery.

Russian strikes have hit crucial parts of Ukraine’s electricity network leading to blackouts — which may last longer than originally expected, a Ukrainian official said on Thursday.

But Zelenskyy said the strikes would not have their intended effect. “Shelling will not break us — to hear the enemy’s anthem on our land is scarier than the enemy’s rockets in our sky. We are not afraid of the dark,” he said.

Putin ally makes rare announcement of soldier deaths

Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and himself the hardline leader of the southern Russian Muslim-majority region of Chechnya, said on Thursday that 23 of his soldiers had been killed by Ukrainian shelling.

Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov said that his soldiers had been killed while in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine. He also said another 58 were wounded.

Russia has rarely given numbers of battlefield deaths. Kadyrov claims that his forces killed some 70 Ukrainians in a revenge attack, but this could not be verified.

US accuses Russia of wasting UN Security Council’s time

Washington has responded to…