"Russian Spy Satellites Eavesdropped on European Satellites for Three Years...Collected Military Intelligence"

Russian Aerospace Forces website

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It has been revealed that Russia has been using reconnaissance satellites to steal various military information from European countries' satellites. It is reported that outdated civilian satellites with insufficient communication encryption have continued to suffer damage. Even as ceasefire negotiations in the Ukraine war are underway, there are growing concerns that Russia’s intelligence activities in outer space will intensify further.

According to the Financial Times (FT) of the United Kingdom on the 4th (local time), Russia’s reconnaissance satellites Luch-1 and Luch-2 approached 17 satellites belonging to various European countries over a period of three years starting in 2023 and attempted to steal information, and are believed to have illegally extracted data from more than 12 of those satellites. Michael Traut, Commander of the German Space Command, said in an interview with the FT, “Both satellites stayed only in the vicinity of Western satellites and made contact with them,” adding, “These satellites are suspected of being engaged in signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection activities.”

These reconnaissance satellites were launched sequentially in 2014, when Russia forcibly annexed the Crimean Peninsula, and again in 2023 after the outbreak of the Ukraine war. The satellites they contacted and extracted information from were mainly civilian-purpose satellites such as satellite television (TV) satellites, and were older satellites that were not equipped with communication encryption devices or computers.

It is assessed that, even as Ukraine ceasefire talks proceed, Russia is stepping up its intelligence activities in outer space as part of its “hybrid warfare” operations. Hybrid warfare here refers to a modern form of warfare that combines conventional military operations by regular forces with non-military operations such as cyberwarfare, infrastructure sabotage, the spread of fake news, psychological warfare, and economic sanctions, in order to throw the enemy into confusion.

Since the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has been identified as being behind incidents in the Baltic Sea region in which undersea internet and power cables were cut. In addition, since the end of the Cold War, Russia is known to have possessed space intelligence technologies more advanced than those of the United States or China, and to have actively developed reconnaissance launch vehicles and satellites for satellite surveillance.

Citing a European intelligence official, the FT pointed out that “Russian reconnaissance satellites could use the information extracted from European satellites and the command link that can control satellites to adjust their orbits or even cause them to fall back to Earth,” adding, “In a contingency, there is also the risk that this capability could be used to disrupt ground targets or conduct hacking operations.”

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