Russia launches space pursuit of satellite helping Ukrainian forces – Spiegel

What is known about Russia's maneuvers

According to the outlet, the unusual activity at an altitude of about 550 kilometers was detected by the private space-monitoring company Okapi: Orbits.

The Russian spacecraft approached Iceye-X36 to within less than 13 kilometers. In low Earth orbit, where objects move at speeds of around 28,000 kilometers per hour, such a maneuver is widely regarded as a hostile act.

The Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on April 17. Russian authorities stated that the payload had a military purpose and included six satellites. Since mid-May, four of them (named Kosmos-2610 to Kosmos-2613) have been rapidly changing their orbits and moving closer to the Western satellite while consuming large amounts of fuel.

The purpose of Russia's provocation

Experts believe Russia may be testing non-kinetic interference technologies.

These could include jamming radio communications, blinding sensors with lasers, or attempting to disrupt data transmissions used by Ukraine.

The physical destruction of a satellite is considered unlikely, as there have been no publicly known cases of one country deliberately shooting down another country's satellite in orbit.

"It is unlikely that Russia would deploy four brand-new satellites and expend significant amounts of onboard fuel merely to monitor their movements," said Juliana Suess, Research Associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

According to her, the Kremlin is attempting to send a signal to the West and NATO by demonstrating the vulnerability of their space infrastructure.

Both Iceye and the Russian side have declined to comment.

Russia's broader provocations

Earlier, Lithuanian intelligence warned that Russia is actively creating new military units near NATO's borders. The Kremlin is using lessons learned from its war against Ukraine to carry out a large-scale reform of its armed forces.

According to analysts, Moscow aims to increase troop numbers by 30% to 50% compared with pre-war levels and fully rebuild its strategic weapons reserves. Despite Western sanctions, Russia expects to achieve full combat readiness for a direct military confrontation with the Alliance within the next six years.

At the same time, Russia is intensifying hybrid pressure and preparing new threats to European security. Recently, Poland's Foreign Ministry warned that Moscow could be planning a large-scale false flag operation on its own territory.

Polish diplomats compared such actions to Nazi provocations in 1939 that were used as a pretext for the outbreak of World War II. According to Warsaw, similar information operations conducted by Russian intelligence services are intended to justify further escalation and additional military strikes.