From "The Analyst":

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN SPACE?

This week saw an intelligence assessment storm in the US. The chair of the House Intelligence Committee requested the Administration release information he had been given in secret, on a potentially game changing Russia weapon that should be the cause of serious concern for the safety of the United States, and its allies.
Nobody has actually said exactly what it is. However it’s largely regarded as the Russians either placing a nuclear weapon in space or some other kind of satellite designed specifically to damage multiple satellites in a first strike in some other way.
Nuclear weapons have been banned from space for decades.
Back in 1962 the US exploded a 1.45 megaton weapon 280km into space.
Most of the Pacific Ocean lost radio, several areas lost electrical power - including most of Japan and the radiation and magnetic pulse destroyed 8 of the then 22 satellites in orbit - one of them was an early British Television satellite they were none to amused about losing as it sent signals across the Atlantic.
Realising the magnitude of what they’d done has resonated down the decades. With literally tens of thousands of satellites in orbit now, it’s not an amusing idea for our technological society.
The timing of this alert comes as the US deployed successfully this week, a string of new generation satellites designed to detect hypersonic missiles, aero ballistics and shorter range ballistic missiles, as well as the more traditional IRBM/SLBM/ICBM types.
Russian space prowess is greatly diminished but this latest launch they put a lot of effort into maintaining. For years they have deliberately used manoeuvring SIGINT satellites to block transmissions and capture others - the Italian military coms satellite especially, being a popular choice.
Back in the 1980’s when Ronald Reagan announced the so called ‘Star Wars’ program to develop anti missile satellites with lasers and kinetic rail guns, along with ground launched interceptor systems, particle canons and the like, it was largely regarded as utter rubbish and that he’d gone quite mad.
Now he seems like a visionary. Laser weapons are appearing and within a decade will be deployable. Anti-missile systems have been developed with increasingly capable results and often shocking reliability that is, frankly, down to the seminal research he initiated 40 years ago. The threat that the US could deploy such weapons terrified the Soviets - they had no hope of ever doing so and they knew it. Indeed in Iceland, in 1986 they reached a principle where all nuclear weapons would be abolished - until Gorbachev insisted that as part of the deal Star Wars was abandoned, something Reagan would never agree to.
So here we are 40 years later and the US, India, China and the Russians have all tested ASAT weapons - several of which caused debris mayhem in such a crowded environment as inner space.
Manoeuvring satellites with multiple capabilities are known to exist. Russia’s have deployable mini-satellites believed to be able to act as hunter killers.
But the idea of a nuclear weapon in space? It seems utterly unnecessary. If you wanted to do that you could fire an ICBM into orbit and do huge damage, and for minimal expense.
If you think the Americans don’t have a system and a plan to retaliate if necessary you’re wrong. But keeping it secret and ambiguous is part of its deterrent effect.
This has all the alarm sounds of the ‘missile gap’ and the ‘bomber gap’ of sixty years ago. If they’ve got one we need ten.
It may simply be best for the Administration to admit what it knows - if it can - because if the secret is told then the source won’t be hard to find the FSB will shut it down.
And even if it is a weapon in space, it has to be used to cause a problem. If we’re at the stage things like that are happening we’ll have way bigger things to worry about.
‘Military secrets are the most fleeting of all’. Secret today, a mobile phone in your pocket tomorrow.