A Russian satellite is approaching a radar station used by Kyiv. Previous incidents and the first private target

In recent days, two satellites have been travelling almost side by side at an altitude of around 540 kilometres. The first is Kosmos 2612, a Russian military satellite launched in April from Plesetsk alongside five others. The second is ICEYE-X36, a synthetic aperture radar satellite originally developed in Finland and now registered in the United States, which, according to various sources, is operating on behalf of Ukraine. Since 30 September, the Russian satellite has fired its engines several times to move into the same orbit: on Thursday, the two were over 300 kilometres apart; on Friday, less than five. In the graph published on X by the Dutch astronomer Marco Langbroek, the red and blue lines eventually overlap.

Anyone following these developments will have experienced a sense of déjà vu. Back in May, four satellites from the same batch – Kosmos 2610 to Kosmos 2613 – had already altered their inclination to enter the orbital plane of ICEYE-X36, coming within about thirteen kilometres. ICEYE had responded with minor course corrections. But the Russians have returned to the fray with greater patience.

The story begins much earlier and also involves Italy. In 2017, the Russian satellite Luch-Olymp approached Athena-Fidus – a Franco-Italian satellite for secure military communications – in geostationary orbit. The following year, the French Defence Minister, Florence Parly, spoke publicly of a satellite with ‘big ears’ and called the manoeuvre by its explicit name: espionage. This was an exception, as Western governments usually remain silent. In 2020, according to the CSIS, Luch-Olymp had already approached more than twenty-five satellites belonging to other countries. Since 2023, its successor, Luch-Olymp 2, has been following the same pattern, and European intelligence services fear that the two satellites may have intercepted traffic from European satellites.

In low Earth orbit – the most sought-after by all launch providers, first and foremost by Elon Musk – the scenario is a recurring one. In 2020, Kosmos 2542 synchronised its orbit with USA 245, a spy satellite belonging to the National Reconnaissance Office, and a few months later, its sister satellite, Kosmos 2543, fired a projectile theoretically capable of destroying another spacecraft. Kosmos 2558 and Kosmos 2576 then settled into the orbits of USA 326 and USA 314. In 2025, it was the turn of Kosmos 2588, positioned alongside USA 338 and suspected of carrying a kinetic weapon.

If anything, the novelty today lies in the target. ICEYE-X36 belongs to a private company and serves a country at war. In 2022, a Russian Foreign Ministry official warned that Western commercial satellites involved in the conflict could become legitimate targets: well, Kosmos 2612 has kept that promise to the letter.

The increasingly active contribution of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) to military operations is also particularly significant. All these cases were, in fact, uncovered by individuals outside government circles: enthusiasts such as Langbroek or Michael Thompson, the Purdue student who was the first to report Kosmos 2542 in 2020, and private companies working with public catalogues and their own telescopes. The Pentagon sees much more, but tends to reveal little. The list is therefore necessarily non-exhaustive, and even leaves out the Americans: the first reconnaissance satellite in history was Prowler, launched in 1990, although it was never formally acknowledged by Washington.

Langbroek observed that if ICEYE-X36 were to stop functioning, it would be highly suspicious but, at the same time, difficult to attribute with certainty. This sentence encapsulates the ambiguous allure of orbital warfare, characterised by invisible actions that can always be denied. The perfect weapon for these times of a renewed Cold War.