‘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.

Cosmos 2612 has been “intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite,” Under Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno wrote on X on Wednesday, adding that the United States “will continue to secure and defend American vital national security interests in, from, and to space.”

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.”

Katie Livingstone is the Ukraine correspondent for Defense News and Military Times. Based in Kyiv, she has covered Russia's full-scale invasion since its first days. She is a former Fulbright fellow whose award-winning work has appeared in outlets across Europe and the U.S.

乌克兰基辅——华盛顿周三在联合国指责莫斯科上周故意将一颗任务不明的俄罗斯军用卫星“危险地”靠近一颗据信为乌克兰服务的美国注册卫星，官员们誓言捍卫美国在太空的利益。

俄罗斯卫星 Cosmos 2612 花了两个多星期的时间向 ICEYE-X36 移动，ICEYE-X36 是芬兰公司 ICEYE 的美国分公司运营的雷达卫星，该公司通过其部分航天器向乌克兰军方提供图像，然后 Cosmos 2612 在 10 月 17 日的那个周末，从近至三分之一英里的距离跟踪 ICEYE-X36。

美国副国务卿托马斯·G·迪纳诺称俄罗斯卫星的行为“具有威胁性”，并表示该国“故意危险地接近一颗商业卫星，这种行为与在轨武器行动一致”。

太空历史学家、前美国宇航局天体物理学家乔纳森·麦克道尔表示，他认为这是两颗在轨运行的卫星首次在未经任何一方所有者批准的情况下在近地轨道上进行交会。

美国副国务卿托马斯·迪纳诺周三在X网站上写道，Cosmos 2612“故意危险地接近一颗商业卫星”，并补充说，美国“将继续在太空、从太空以及向太空保障和捍卫美国重要的国家安全利益”。

这次近距离接触发生在空军部长特洛伊·梅因克公开证实美国在轨部署武器，以及太空部队选定两家公司建造太空侦察卫星数周之后。此前还有报道称，亿万富翁埃隆·马斯克奉白宫之命，减缓了乌克兰赖以生存的军用级星链卫星的传输速度，导致该国一些至关重要的防空武器无法使用。

据战略与国际研究中心航空航天安全项目副主任克莱顿·斯沃普称，此次行动符合俄罗斯针对欧洲和美国更广泛的恐吓行动，让俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京得以“戳西方的眼睛，看着西方无动于衷”。

“他们证明了一点——西方无法阻止我，”斯沃普周三在加拿大安全情报局 (CSIS) 就此次遭遇举行的小组讨论会上补充道。

据总部位于弗吉尼亚州的 Integrity ISR 战略与发展高级副总裁 Greg Gillinger 称，随着美国及其盟友越来越依赖商业能力来维护国家安全，卫星等关键资产“已成为可被对手利用的漏洞”。Greg Gillinger 也曾在 CSIS 小组会议上发言。

专家表示，卫星攻击的影响可能远远超出一家公司或一个国家，因为如今军方作战所使用的大部分图像和网络连接都由商业卫星承载。马斯克在乌克兰的星链服务中断事件表明，当网络接入在毫无预警的情况下被限制时，军事力量会遭受多大的损失——同时也表明，局部地缘政治冲突很容易演变成全球安全危机。

据 Integrity ISR 的新闻通讯报道，10 月 12 日，向美国军方联合商业行动小组提供信息的商业跟踪器标记了 Cosmos 2612 滑入 ICEYE-X36 轨道（距离地球约 345 英里）时可能发生的交会。

据 CNN 报道，跟踪公司 LeoLabs 在一份声明中表示，10 月 15 日和 16 日，俄罗斯卫星从距离 ICEYE-X36 200 多英里处移动到大约 3 英里处，然后靠近并在整个周末保持该位置。

吉林格说，两颗卫星的飞行速度约为每秒 4 英里（7 公里），因此，让两个物体“彼此之间的距离达到一百米甚至一公里以内”就“相当于飞机以非常紧密的队形飞行”。

他说：“俄罗斯不可能偶然接近X36导弹发射井一公里以内。这表明他们有意发出某种信号。”

ICEYE公司的雷达卫星能够穿透云层、烟雾和黑暗，该公司在1月份的一份声明中表示，已扩大与乌克兰军方的合作，并承诺“按战术时间表”继续提供图像。然而，该公司尚未确认哪些卫星为基辅提供服务。

自全面入侵乌克兰的第一年起，莫斯科就警告说，帮助乌克兰的西方商业卫星可能成为合法的军事目标。

ICEYE 的一位发言人本周早些时候告诉《空军与太空部队杂志》，该公司“已经意识到这种情况并正在密切跟踪”，并且其“星座架构旨在实现连续性和韧性”。

俄罗斯此次卫星机动行动的意图尚不明确。据美国航天技术公司LeoLabs称，其可能的目的包括情报收集、近距离监视、胁迫以及为未来针对卫星的行动做准备。

该公司表示，这些操作展示了可用于“检查、表征、跟踪或可能干扰其他航天器”的能力，尽管它们“并不构成敌对意图”。

分析人士目前还无法断定莫斯科是计划发动袭击后又改变了计划，还是出于完全不同的目的在附近盘旋。

斯沃普解释说，俄罗斯可能是在为未来的攻击进行“演练”，或者这颗卫星可能携带了某种武器，从干扰器到激光器再到弹丸。

“你们的目的是炸毁卫星吗？不是，”他说。“你们的目的是给卫星注入某种能量吗？可能吧……我不知道你们为什么要这样近距离地进行机动，除非你们想对卫星进行某种需要注入能量的操作。”

俄罗斯卫星随后撤退，但距离并不远。

吉林格说，周三它再次以 ICEYE-X36 的高度飞行，与 ICEYE-X36 保持大约 250 英里（400 公里）的距离，并且“可以在他们选择的时间和地点轻松再次缩小差距”。

据 Integrity ISR 称，俄罗斯可能会在几周内尝试接近另一颗 ICEYE 卫星，因为同一发射的另外两颗卫星很快将与第二颗卫星 ICEYE-X37 的轨道对齐。

吉林格说：“如果他们采取行动，我们可能会看到另一种情况，即另一颗商业卫星被其中一颗俄罗斯卫星紧紧跟踪。”

撤退行动始于 10 月 18 日，两天前，唐纳德·特朗普总统签署了一项行政命令，取消了对俄罗斯的关税和大部分经济限制。

斯沃普表示，特朗普放松制裁的举动“可能是普京说‘你知道，现在不是加剧与美国紧张关系的时候。也许我们应该暂停这项行动。’的原因之一。”

他说：“如果你快要达成协议了，为什么要冒险破坏它呢？”

近几个月来，太空冲突的可能性一直在增加。

根据一项 2025 年战争游戏情景的结论，如果俄罗斯用轨道上的核武器威胁美国军用和商用卫星，华盛顿“似乎缺乏应对选项”。该情景中虚构的俄罗斯太空物体威胁到美国的利益。

目前尚无公开迹象表明 Cosmos 2612 携带核武器，但斯沃普表示，目前国际上还没有公认的规则来确定此类行动是否应被视为敌对行为，或者在应对时应遵循哪些国际标准。

“尽管我们都能充分说明为什么这是敌对行为，但却没有任何可以作为依据的准则，”他说。

斯沃普表示，如果没有明确的应对计划或对侵略行为的真正后果，像这样具有威胁性的卫星行动“实际上只是俄罗斯可以随时打开和关闭的水龙头”，以加大对对手的压力。

他补充说，俄罗斯“将会再次启动它”。

凯蒂·利文斯通是《防务新闻》和《军事时报》的乌克兰特派记者。她常驻基辅，自俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰之初便开始报道此事。她曾是富布赖特学者，其获奖作品发表于欧洲和美国的多家媒体。