Putin's secret space weapon: Kremlin's mysterious Cosmos 2553 satellite 'is fitted with dummy warhead' in 'forerunner to nuke that could wipe out rival spacecraft and cause chaos on Earth' A mysterious Russian satellite soaring at the outer limits of orbit around the Earth has triggered fears that Moscow is developing a space-based platform to launch missiles - perhaps even nuclear weapons - to destroy untold numbers of vital satellites.
The 'Cosmos 2553' satellite was blasted through the atmosphere atop a Soyuz-2 rocket from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome in February 2022 days before Vladimir Putin ordered troops across the border into Ukraine.
Defunct or decommissioned satellites are sent far out into this region of space to die silently in a so-called 'graveyard orbit', so the orbital path of Cosmos 2553 raised suspicions among US spacewatchers.
