Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied reports from US media that Moscow is developing nuclear weapons to strike targets in space.
Several US media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post as well as broadcasters ABC and Fox News reported the findings by citing US intelligence last week.
They said Russia was attempting to develop an anti-satellite nuclear weapon based in space which could pose a threat to national and international security.
Fox News reported that the use of nuclear systems against satellites could potentially disable US military communications and reconnaissance.
Putin on Tuesday firmly rejected the allegations.
"Our position is clear and unequivocal: we have always been categorically against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space and we are still categorically against it," the Russian president told the Interfax news agency at a meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Russia had always called for existing agreements in this area to be honoured, according to Putin. Shoigu also said that Russia had no nuclear projects in space. The US knows this too, he added.
Following the release of the media reports on Wednesday, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed on Thursday that Russia is developing military capabilities for use against satellites in space but left the specific nature of the threat open.
US President Joe Biden later clarified that neither the citizens of the US nor elsewhere in the world were facing a nuclear threat.
The Kremlin has also framed the allegations as an attempt to persuade Russia to resume talks on strategic security. In principle, Moscow was open to this, Putin said, as well as to negotiations on Ukraine.
However, such dialogue was incompatible with US calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine, he added.
