WW3 fears as 4 Russian satellites make ‘alarming’ move | World | News
Fears of World War III were sparked when at least four Russian satellites changed orbit to track an American spacecraft. Washington and the Kremlin are in a race for the stars militarily, with Vladimir Putin launching a series of satellites of ‘unknown purpose’ in recent years since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Some speculate that the Russian ship could be used to disable Western satellites in order to force the United States and its allies into a communications blackout in the event of war. Now analysts claim that a new joint American-Finnish radar surveillance satellite is being tracked by Russian spacecraft.
According to cyber and intelligence monitoring firm Integrity ISR, retired Air Force space intelligence officer Greg Gillinger said Moscow satellites have now changed their orbits to match those of the US-Finnish ship called ICEYE-X36.
Gillinger, Russian Cosmos Satellites 2610, 2611, 2612, and 2613 had each shifted their orbital angles by just under one degree to align with ICEYE-X36.
Mr. Gillinger wrote: “The maneuvers brought 4 satellites into nearly coplanar orbits with ICEYE-X36.
“We do not know Russia’s intentions or capabilities of these particular satellites, but maneuvering into a coplanar orbit is concerning. Aircraft matching is the first (and most expensive in terms of fuel) step in conducting Rendezvous Proximity Operations (RPO) likely required for Russian satellites to target ICEYE-X36 (kinetic or non-kinetic).”
Competition between Russia and the West in space has intensified in recent months. Defense officials announced in February that two Russian spacecraft intercepted communications from more than a dozen key European satellites.
The intercepts carried the risk of compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites and also increased the risk that Russia would attempt to move or even crash the satellites.
A senior European intelligence official has revealed that Kremlin spacecraft deliberately positioned themselves inside narrow data beams transmitted from Earth-based stations to European satellites.
Major General Traut warned that this tactic would leave Western satellites vulnerable to interception or even destruction if hostile actors intercepted unencrypted command data.
