Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now.

Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app.

Hello and welcome to the Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, February 18th, 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been making international headlines this week,

just six days from what will be the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Stories about troop buildup along Russia's border, NATO, and the possibility of nuclear space weapons are just two of many news stories out in recent weeks.

Are Putin's ambitions in Europe shifting and how worried should the United States,

arguably his biggest foe be.

To learn more about this fast developing situation, I'm joined now by USA Today's

Pentagon correspondent Tom Vandenbrooke.

Thanks for being on the excerpt, Tom.

Dana, thanks for having me.

Let's start with the bombshell news last week regarding Putin's ambition to put nuclear

weapons in space. What's the story here, Tom?

The story has to do with satellite weapons,

and specifically weapons that Putin wants to put into space

to hamper our satellites.

And obviously satellites,

governor a variety of things that we do from GPS to communication.

So it's a big concern.

The White House has trying to downplay this and said that these weapons have not been deployed.

It's a capability he hopes to deploy.

So it hasn't been sent into space yet.

...