'America flew off the handle' Russia foreign minister Lavrov rages at US over 'plan to put arms in space'

Lavrov has accused the United States of wanting to put arms in space.

He also acknowledged that the International Space Station is "not infinite".

Lavrov said: "Now that we still have this International Space Station, it is surrealistic that our astronauts go to the United States to be trained and work on Space X and American astronauts get trained in Russia then use our space vehicle to go to space.

"It looks weird but its true...it is important.

"The Space Station is not infinite, we have extended the resource a couple of times, we are building our own, the Chinese have built their own. We have a joint project with the Chinese.

"Nasa leaders seem to be saying they don't mind cooperation on the International Space Station but we have never heard anything like that at the political level."

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He also accused the US of wanting to put a weapon in space, and that they will 'keep fighting' adding: "We have been promoting in Geneva the draft contract on preventing the arms race in space, on non placement of the arms in space.

"The US disagree and we kind of made a step back to suggest for the start to suggest the individual commitment of each country not to be the first to place arms in space and many countries have joined and we shall keep working.

"The Americans behave otherwise and have the reverse initiative. They say we have the right to put arms in space, we are not going to sign such commitment and you and the Chinese get anti satellite weapons ready so our satellites can be destroyed."

"That's how the talks work and its clear after the start of the hybrid war against Russia it is difficult to continue such discussions.

"Considering that the Americans flew off handle in starting this campaign and twisting everyone arms trying either to oust Russia from UN agencies who do important things or to restrict such participation from Russia.

"So the fight goes on. We keep fighting."

The US has responded saying how crucial space is for its defence systems adding that Russia is targeting American systems.

Assistant secretary of defence for space policy John F. Plumb said: "For the Department of Defense space is essential to how we compete and fight in every domain.

"It provides us with a missile warning and missile tracking critical to defending our homeland...To put it simply, space-based missions are essential to the U.S. way of war.

"China ultimately seeks to challenge our ability to conduct joint operations in the Indo-Pacific."

"Russia is developing, testing and fielding its own counterspace systems, including ground-based and space-based kinetic anti-satellite weapons. These are aimed at degrading and denying U.S. space-based services."