Russia could be practicing an attack on a satellite that helps the Ukrainian Armed Forces – media

Four Russian military satellites have made a dangerous maneuver near the Finnish Iceye-X36 satellite, data from which is used by the Ukrainian military. Experts believe that in this way Russia may have been practicing ways to influence Western spacecraft.

Spiegel writes about this.

Unusual activity in orbit was spotted by space monitoring company Okapi. According to its data, Russian satellites approached Iceye-X36 to a distance of less than 13 kilometers.

This is a very close distance for space. In low Earth orbit, spacecraft move at a speed of about 28,000 kilometers per hour, so experts consider such maneuvers potentially dangerous.

These are four satellites of the “Kosmos” series, which Russia launched in April of this year from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. Starting in mid-May, they began to actively change their orbits and approach the Western satellite.

According to experts, Moscow would hardly waste significant fuel reserves just for the sake of a demonstrative flight next to another vehicle. Therefore, experts suggest that Russia could be testing so-called non-kinetic impact technologies.

In particular, this concerns the possibility of jamming signals, interfering with data transmission, or even blinding satellite sensors with laser systems.

Juliana Süss, an expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, believes that the Kremlin can thus send a signal to Western countries and NATO, demonstrating that their space infrastructure remains vulnerable.

At the same time, there are currently no signs of preparations for the physical destruction of a satellite. In world practice, there have never been cases when one state deliberately shot down another country’s spacecraft during peacetime.

Iceye and the Russian side have not yet commented on the situation.

It was previously reported that Russian Rassvet satellites are already capable of creating an alternative communication channel over Ukraine for the needs of the Russian army.

Recall that Russia has launched the first communications satellites into orbit that can be used as an alternative to Starlink for the military.

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