‘The West can’t stop me’: Space wars heat up as Russia tails a Ukraine-linked US satellite

KYIV, Ukraine — Washington blamed Moscow at the United Nations on Wednesday for deliberately moving a Russian military satellite with an undisclosed mission “dangerously” close last week to a U.S.-registered satellite believed to serve Ukraine, with officials vowing to defend American interests in space.

The Russian satellite, Cosmos 2612, spent more than two weeks maneuvering toward ICEYE-X36, a radar satellite operated by the American arm of Finnish company ICEYE that supplies imagery to Ukraine’s military through some of its spacecraft, then shadowed it from as close as a third of a mile through the weekend of Oct. 17.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno called the Russian satellite’s behavior “threatening,” and said the country had been “intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite, behaviors consistent with on-orbit weapons operations.”

Space historian and former NASA astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said that he believed it is the first rendezvous in low Earth orbit between two active satellites without one owner’s approval.

The close encounter came weeks after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink publicly confirmed that the U.S. has weapons in orbit and the Space Force picked two companies to build space-to-space reconnaissance satellites. It also followed reports that trillionaire Elon Musk — under White House orders — slowed the military-grade Starlink that Ukraine relies on, rendering some of the country’s essential air defense weapons useless.

The operation fits a wider Russian campaign of intimidation against Europe and the U.S. that lets Russian President Vladimir Putin “poke the West in the eye and watch the West do nothing,” according to Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They prove a point – the West can’t stop me,” Swope added Wednesday during a CSIS panel on the encounter.

As the U.S. and its allies increasingly rely on commercial capabilities for national security, key assets like satellites have “become vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our adversary,” according to Greg Gillinger, senior vice president of strategy and development at Virginia-based Integrity ISR, who also spoke on the CSIS panel.

The impact of a possible satellite attack could reach well beyond one company or country, since commercial satellites now carry much of the imagery and connectivity militaries fight with, experts said. Musk’s Starlink slowdown in Ukraine showed how quickly a military force can suffer when that access is throttled without notice — and how easily local geopolitical conflicts can explode into global security crises.

On Oct. 12, commercial trackers feeding the U.S. military’s Joint Commercial Operations cell flagged the possible rendezvous when Cosmos 2612 slid into ICEYE-X36’s orbit roughly 345 miles above Earth, according to Integrity ISR’s newsletter.

On Oct. 15 and 16, the Russian satellite moved from more than 200 miles behind ICEYE-X36 to roughly 3 miles away before moving in closer and holding position through the weekend, tracking firm LeoLabs said in a statement reported by CNN.

Both satellites travel at roughly 4 miles (7 kilometers) per second, so getting two objects “within a hundred meters or even a kilometer” of each other is “the equivalent of flying in a very tight formation in an aircraft,” Gillinger said.

“Russia didn’t accidentally get within a kilometer of X36,” he said. “It is an indication of intent that they’re sending a message.”

ICEYE, whose radar satellites see through clouds, smoke and darkness, expanded cooperation with Ukraine’s military, pledging continued imagery “on tactical timelines,” according to a January statement. However, the company has not confirmed which of its satellites serve Kyiv.

Moscow has warned since the first year of its full-scale invasion that Western commercial satellites helping Ukraine could become legitimate military targets.

ICEYE said it is “aware of the situation and tracking it closely” and that its “constellation architecture is designed for continuity and resilience,” a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine earlier this week.

Russia’s intent behind the satellite maneuvers remains unclear. According to LeoLabs, an American space technology company, possible aims range from intelligence collection and close inspection to coercion and groundwork for future operations against satellites.

The maneuvers demonstrated capabilities that could be used to “inspect, characterize, shadow, or potentially interfere with another spacecraft,” though they “do not establish hostile intent,” the company said.

Analysts could not yet say whether Moscow planned an attack and then reversed course, or was orbiting nearby for another purpose entirely.

Russia could have been doing “a dry run” for a future attack, or the satellite could have been carrying a weapon, from a jammer to a laser to a projectile, Swope explained.

“Was the intent to blow up the satellite? No,” he said. “Was the intent to put some type of energy on the satellite? Probably… I don’t know why you’d need to maneuver in this way, this close, unless you wanted to do something that involved putting energy on that satellite.”

The Russian satellite has since pulled back, but not far.

It was again flying at ICEYE-X36’s altitude on Wednesday, holding roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) behind it, and could “easily close that gap again at the time and place of their choosing,” Gillinger said.

Russia could try to approach another ICEYE satellite within weeks, as two more satellites from the same launch will soon line up with the orbit of a second satellite, ICEYE-X37, according to Integrity ISR.

If they move in, “we could see another scenario where another commercial satellite is closely trailed by one of these Russian satellites,” Gillinger said.

The retreat began Oct. 18, two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order waiving tariffs and most economic restrictions on Russia.

Swope said Trump’s move to ease sanctions “could have been a reason why Putin said, ‘You know, now’s not the time to exacerbate tensions specifically with the United States. Maybe we should pause this operation.’”

“If you’re getting close to a deal on something, why jeopardize that?” he said.

The potential for a conflict in space has been growing in recent months.

Washington “appears to lack response options” if Russia threatened U.S. military and commercial satellites with a nuclear weapon in orbit, according to the conclusions from a 2025 war-game scenario where fictional Russian space objects threatened American interests.

There is no public indication that Cosmos 2612 carries a nuclear weapon, but Swope said that there is also still no internationally recognized rule for determining if a maneuver like this one should be considered hostile — or what international standards should be followed in a response.

“Even though we all can make a good case on why this was [hostile], there’s no norm that you could point to,” he said.

Without a clear response plan or real consequences for aggression, menacing satellite moves like this one are “literally just a spigot that Russia could turn on and off” to increase pressure on adversaries, Swope said.

Russia, he added, “is going to turn it on again.”