"Why did Russia Veto the United Nations Resolution Concerning" Topic

… Nuclear Weapons in Outer Space?

"In April 2024, "Russia cast the only vote against the draft resolution that reaffirmed provisions in the Outer Space Treaty prohibiting the placement of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space." The vetoed resolution had been approved by the U.N.'s Fourth Committee. (The Fourth Committee is one of the main six committees of the U.N. General Assembly. It is tasked with, among other things, issues dealing with space.) This veto was particularly significant because the proposed resolution was the arms control equivalent of motherhood and apple pie. Thus, something incredibly significant must have driven such a decision.

Putin is increasingly behaving like a rogue state leader, thumbing his nose at the international community. Russian has historically supported arms control that is both ill-defined and largely unverifiable, but the Russian veto to the reaffirmation of a 1967 Treaty goes beyond this. Putin's diplomacy is becoming increasingly thuggish, reflecting the viciousness of his war against Ukraine and his disdain for Western values…"

Main page

link

Armand

What a weird spin! The USSR, and then Russia, never liked Arms Control Treaties very much unless they constrained the US/West MORE than it did them. That is to say:

1. IF Russia feels the US capabilities in an area are more advanced or developed, THEN they will want a treaty to stall US progress while they catch-up with hard to detect and hard to enforce treaty violations.

2. IF Russia feels that US capabilities in an area lag behind Russian capabilities or it's critically strategic that Russia not be constrained, THEN Russia will block arms control efforts.

Some may be up there already. Or other such weapons, i.e. "Rods from God" …

All necessary agreements already exist. Any weapon, not just nuclear, has long been prohibited in space:

link

Nebenzya spoke well at the UN about who, where and when violated the concluded agreements:

link