Weapons designers across Russia and China are racing to perfect arms that could target and destroy Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites. But Western military leaders warn that shooting down a single SpaceX spacecraft could ignite a war with not just the US, but the entire NATO alliance.

During the last days of European peace in 2021, as the Kremlin amassed its tanks and nuclear-capable rockets across its borderlands - poised to attack Ukraine - it launched a precision-guided missile into the heavens, to shoot down one of its own spy-sats.

On striking the Soviet-era satellite, speeding at nearly 30,000 kilometres per hour, Moscow’s warhead created a deathly cloud of shrapnel that orbits the Earth along the same trajectory as the International Space Station, infuriating leaders at NASA and the European Space Agency.

ESA and NASA astronauts were forced to prepare for an emergency escape, sheltering inside a space capsule, as Mission Controllers in the US and EU issued angry démarches to their Russian counterparts. Yet they were also bewildered: why would Moscow imperil its own ISS cosmonauts?

The Kremlin might have been willing to sacrifice its ISS spacefarers as martyrs in the battle to restore Russia’s Iron Curtain empire. The satellite kamikaze mission was designed to blast out a warning to any space power contemplating helping Ukraine counter Russia’s invasion.

In retrospect, Russia’s launch of its robotic assassin “was on the pre-invasion checklist,” says US General Thomas Ayres. The warhead-tipped warning to rival space forces later became clear: “If you seek to come to Ukraine’s aid, US and NATO satellites will be in jeopardy.”

As Russia’s rockets cratered homes and hospitals across Ukraine, its cyber-soldiers targeted computers linked via the US satellite internet outfit Viasat. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss identified Moscow’s notorious GRU military intelligence unit as the assault’s mastermind.

“This is clear and shocking evidence of a deliberate and malicious attack by Russia,” which destroyed thousands of Viasat terminals Europe-wide, Truss said. Mirroring Churchill’s disdain for dictators, the potential new prime minister vowed retribution with “severe consequences”.

In a remarkable, lightning-speed operation resembling the Berlin Airlift - similarly aimed at breaking through Moscow’s military blockade of a besieged democracy - Elon Musk began parachuting thousands of SpaceX satellite Web stations into Ukraine. Russia’s rulers were enraged.

The volatile head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and of its nuclear rocket forces, sent out a “red alert” falsely charging Musk with aiding “Nazi” brigades in Ukraine, and intimated revenge was in the works against the SpaceX founder and his Starlink satellite network.