RUSSIA has vetoed a United Nations resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling for nuclear arms to be banned from outer space, calling it “a dirty spectacle” that singled out weapons of mass destruction when all others should also be prohibited.

Wednesday night’s vote by the 15-member security council was 13 in favour, with Russia opposed and China abstaining.

The resolution would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that includes the US and Russia, and to agree to the need to verify compliance.

US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted after the vote that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that his government has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.

“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” she asked. “It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”

Mr Putin was responding to White House confirmation in February that Russia had obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.

Moscow’s ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the text as “absolutely absurd and politicised” and said it didn’t go far enough, calling for all types of weapons to be banned in space.

Russia and China proposed an amendment to the US-Japanese draft to call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”

With countries voting in favour, seven against — including the US — and one abstention, the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the required minimum of nine Yes votes.

After the vote, Mr Nebenzia addressed the US ambassador, saying: “We want a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space, not just WMDs [weapons of mass destruction]. But you don’t want that. And let me ask you that very same question. Why?”

He argued that much of the US and Japan’s motives become clear “if we recall that the US and their allies announced some time ago plans to place weapons … in outer space.”

Mr Nebenzia said that, since 2008, Washington had been blocking a Russian-Chinese proposal for a treaty against putting weapons in outer space.