Expert says Russian satellite may have rehearsed attack on Western satellite

In mid-October, the Russian military satellite Kosmos-2612 approached the Finnish radar satellite ICEYE X36 to within about a kilometer. Western governments and Ukraine receive imagery from the satellite, and a US analyst said the maneuver resembled a “rehearsal for an attack.”

The Russian military satellite Kosmos-2612, which approached a Western commercial satellite in low Earth orbit in mid-October, may have been rehearsing an attack, a US space security specialist told Reuters. The satellite is X36, operated by Finland’s ICEYE, which provides radar imagery to the governments and armed forces of Western countries, including Ukraine.

Analysts estimate that Kosmos-2612 came to within about one kilometer of X36, while some reports put the distance at several hundred meters. The US company LeoLabs previously said that the Russian spacecraft had come “extremely close” to X36 over South America. Three specialists described the episode as one of the closest known approaches by a Russian military spacecraft to a commercial satellite in low Earth orbit.

“This looks like a rehearsal for an attack,” said Greg Gilliangillinger, a senior analyst at the US company Integrity ISR and a former US Air Force intelligence officer. He said it was “Russia’s most aggressive posture in terms of threatening another country’s satellites” that he had seen. Gilliangillinger believes that such a close approach would not be necessary either to gather intelligence or to conduct radio-electronic interference.

Стартовый комплекс космодрома Плесецк (архив, 2025)

US Deputy Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno previously said that Kosmos-2612 had “maneuvered deliberately dangerously” near a commercial satellite, and that such behavior “is consistent with operations involving orbital weapons.” The spacecraft is officially classified as an inspection and servicing satellite. It is part of a group of six military satellites Russia launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in April; in May, four of them approached X36, forcing ICEYE to move its spacecraft.

Now, according to the US company COMSPOC, two more Russian satellites are heading toward the orbit of another ICEYE spacecraft, X37. Major General Michael Traut, commander of Germany’s space forces, said that such approaches could serve various purposes, ranging from inspection and observation to interference or disabling a satellite, but that tracking data alone cannot establish Russia’s intentions.

ICEYE said that X36 remains operational. Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western commercial satellites assisting Ukraine could become legitimate targets.

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