ESSAY: Four Russian Satellites at 13 km from ICEYE-X36 — the Space War Is Already Here

Introduction: When Orbit Becomes a Battlefield

Space, the new theater of the Russo-Ukrainian war

On June 24, 2026, the world learned that four Russian satellites — Kosmos-2610, Kosmos-2611, Kosmos-2612, and Kosmos-2613 — had closed to within 13 kilometers of the Finnish satellite ICEYE-X36, the very same satellite supplying radar intelligence to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This information, confirmed by Spiegel magazine and carried by RBC-Ukraine, is not a minor technological footnote. It is an act of silent warfare, carried out at 28,000 kilometers per hour, several hundred kilometers above our heads.

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, every domain of war has been progressively colonized by technology and hybrid warfare. But space — long protected by treaties and a tacit mutual restraint — is now the new front. The Russian Kosmos satellites launched from Plesetsk on April 17, 2026 are not there by accident: they track, surveil, and potentially threaten a crucial militarized civilian asset vital to Ukraine.

ICEYE-X36: the radar eye Moscow wants to blind

The satellite ICEYE-X36 is a tool of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) surveillance of formidable precision. Unlike optical satellites, it can see through clouds, day and night, and detect troop movements, armored concentrations, or offensive preparations with an acuity that the Ukrainian Armed Forces use actively. Denying Kyiv this eye in the sky would be a major operational advantage for Moscow.

A 13-kilometer approach in low Earth orbit, at a relative speed of several thousand kilometers per hour, is officially regarded as a hostile act by the international community of space experts. This is called a close inspection — or worse, a positioning for future neutralization. No one can ignore this signal. Yet the Western diplomatic silence in the face of this provocation is, itself, telling.

Kosmos-2610 through 2613: a constellation of hunters

A coordinated launch from Plesetsk

The four Kosmos satellites were launched together on April 17, 2026 from the Plesetsk base in northern Russia. This group launch is not incidental: it reflects a constellation strategy, where multiple satellites work in concert to track, encircle, and potentially neutralize a target. The fact that they were immediately directed toward ICEYE-X36 confirms the objective was known in advance.

Trajectory analysis by Western experts shows these satellites carried out deliberate orbital maneuvers to reduce their distance from the target. These are not coincidences. Russia has a long tradition of "inspector" satellites — but never this close, never this many at once, and never this visibly tied to an active armed conflict.

A relative speed that makes any collision fatal

At 28,000 km/h, a satellite travels roughly 8 kilometers per second. At that speed, a collision between two objects in low Earth orbit is not simply destructive to both craft: it generates a debris cloud capable of threatening every satellite in the same orbit, in what experts call the Kessler syndrome. Russia is playing with fire — and with the safety of all global space infrastructure.

It is crucial to understand that ICEYE-X36 is not a military satellite in the strict sense. It is a commercial Finnish device, leased for intelligence purposes by Ukraine. Attacking or neutralizing a commercial satellite belonging to a NATO member state would constitute a direct violation of international law and potentially a casus belli. Moscow is probing the limits — how far can it go before the West actually responds?

Ukraine's response: striking Moscow's ears on the ground

The Dubna MARK-IV antenna reduced to ashes

Ukraine did not remain passive in the face of this space threat. On June 22, 2026, its forces struck the Dubna space communications center, destroying a 32-meter MARK-IV antenna. This infrastructure was directly linked to the control and command of Russian satellites, including possibly the Kosmos killer constellation. By striking Dubna, Ukraine struck Moscow's hands in space.

Satellite imagery confirmed the destruction. The strike also targeted a second center in Vladimir, a few days later, according to sources published on June 25, 2026. This is no coincidence: Ukraine has understood that the space war is also won on the ground, by blinding the control stations that orient and feed enemy satellites.

The asymmetric counter-attack strategy

Kyiv cannot send its own satellites to hunt the Russian Kosmos. But it can destroy the ground nodes that animate them. This asymmetric strategy — striking support infrastructure rather than the satellites themselves — is both more realistic and potentially more effective. Without a ground control station, a satellite becomes a useless object circling in orbit.

Ukraine's space warfare doctrine is being refined month by month. The strikes on Dubna and Vladimir are part of a systematic campaign aimed at degrading Russia's remote command capability. Every destroyed antenna is a window closed in the sky — a reduction of Russia's space sovereignty, built over decades at enormous cost.

Volna Kupol Garant: jamming Starlink for $1.5 million

An electronic warfare system built to crush Starlink

Alongside the satellite war, Russia has deployed a formidable ground weapon: the Volna Kupol Garant system, designed specifically to jam Starlink communications over a 20 km² area. Each unit costs $1.5 million, according to an investigation published on June 20, 2026 by Intent Press, which revealed that the company Russkiy Kupol of Simferopol, Crimea — a sanctioned enterprise — was selling this equipment to the Russian military.

Starlink has become the backbone of Ukrainian military communications. Jamming Starlink means cutting data links between drones and operators, disrupting tactical communications, and potentially disorienting entire units. Russia has understood that neutralizing Starlink on the ground is almost as effective as destroying Elon Musk's satellites in orbit.

The Kerch unit destroyed on June 24

But Ukraine responded with surgical precision. On June 24, 2026, a Volna Kupol Garant unit deployed at Kerch, in occupied Crimea, was destroyed. Satellite images confirmed the destruction. This is a direct financial loss for Russia — $1.5 million in sophisticated equipment reduced to nothing — but above all, it is a signal: Ukraine can locate and neutralize these electronic warfare systems, even on territory it has lost.

Electronic warfare is now an unavoidable component of the conflict. Ukraine and Russia are locked in a spiral of action and reaction where every new jamming or communications system generates a technological adversarial response. This electronic arms race unfolds in real time, on the ground, with gains and losses measured in days, sometimes hours.

The militarization of space: a historic turning point

From the Cold War to active conflict in orbit

The military space race is not new. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union developed anti-satellite systems, spy satellites, and even orbital nuclear weapons programs. Treaties — notably the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 — attempted to establish safeguards. But Ukraine-Russia 2026 demonstrates that these treaties no longer offer any real protection.

The fundamental difference from the Cold War is that the conflict in orbit is no longer hypothetical. Kosmos-2610 through 2613 are not concepts on a drawing board: they are real objects, actively maneuvering around an operational satellite guiding military strikes in Ukraine right now. Space has entered the war. That is not a metaphor.

The asymmetry between space actors

Russia possesses a space infrastructure inherited from the Soviet era — control centers, seasoned cosmonautics specialists, an aerospace industry still capable of producing and launching military satellites. Ukraine, meanwhile, relies on commercial partnerships with private actors like ICEYE (Finland) and SpaceX (Starlink). This is a fundamental asymmetry — but paradoxically, Ukraine has managed to turn this dependency into agility.

Private actors like ICEYE innovate faster than military bureaucracies. They can launch new satellites within months, update their software in real time, and adapt their sensors to field requirements. Against a heavier, slower-moving Russian adversary, Ukraine has found in the commercial space sector a competitive advantage nobody had fully anticipated.

International law in the face of the orbital void

The gaping holes in the space legal framework

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction in orbit, but it does not clearly define what constitutes a hostile approach. There is no clear international rule on the minimum distance between satellites of adversarial nations, no sanction provided for orbital intimidation maneuvers. This legal vacuum is deliberately exploited by Russia.

Debates at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) are paralyzed by Russia's and China's de facto vetoes. Every attempt to establish rules of responsible behavior in orbit meets systematic obstruction from Moscow. International space law is a war behind — and that lag is costing Ukraine dearly.

The West's responsibility in defining new norms

The European Union and the United States have begun working on a Code of Conduct for Space Activities. The American initiative on responsible space behavior, promoted since 2021, has secured the endorsement of several dozen countries. But without Russia or China inside that framework, these commitments remain symbolic. Real space deterrence requires the capacity to defend orbital assets.

NATO officially recognized space as an operational domain in 2019. Since then, Allied investments in space surveillance, constellation resilience, and anti-satellite countermeasures have accelerated. But the Russian threat against ICEYE-X36 shows that doctrine still precedes capability. The pace must increase.

Starlink, cornerstone of an asymmetric war

Ukraine's dependence on a private American network

Starlink currently provides Ukraine with fundamental tactical connectivity: drone guidance, encrypted communications between units, artillery coordination, and even access to real-time weather data. Without Starlink, a significant portion of Ukraine's offensive and defensive capability collapses. Russia is well aware of this — hence the massive investments in jamming systems like the Volna Kupol Garant.

This dependency nevertheless raises profound strategic questions. Elon Musk is a private, American actor with unpredictable political positions. He has already, on several occasions, restricted or conditioned access to Starlink in certain combat zones. Ukraine — and the West with it — must diversify its space dependencies to avoid handing the outcome of a war to the goodwill of a single billionaire.

European alternatives to Starlink

Europe is working on its own responses. The IRIS² project (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite), launched by the European Union, aims to deploy a constellation of secure communications satellites by 2030. But that is a long way off. In the meantime, partnerships with ICEYE, Planet Labs, and other commercial actors allow Ukraine to maintain a functional space presence.

The lesson of the war in Ukraine for Western military planners is clear: commercial satellites have become de facto military assets. Their protection, resilience, and defense must be integrated into collective defense doctrines. NATO must develop mechanisms for collective space defense — and do so quickly.

Ukraine at the heart of the military space revolution

A full-scale laboratory for new doctrines

The Russo-Ukrainian war is in the process of rewriting every existing military doctrine. In just a few years, it has demonstrated the primacy of first-person-view (FPV) drones, the vulnerability of armored vehicles to satellite-guided precision artillery, and now the open militarization of low Earth orbit. Every general staff in the world is watching, taking notes, and will revise its manuals.

For Ukraine, being at the center of this revolution is both a curse and an opportunity. A curse because Ukrainians are paying the price in blood. An opportunity because their military is developing in real time competencies and doctrines that their Western partners will take years to integrate through simulation. Kyiv is today the world capital of military innovation.

Lessons for NATO allies

NATO allies watching this war from their comfortable headquarters must understand one thing: the next war the Alliance might fight will look like this one. Militarized commercial satellites, massive jamming, autonomous drones, real-time information warfare — none of this is science fiction anymore. It is Ukraine's present, and it is the future of war in Europe if the West fails to consolidate its deterrence.

Investments in space resilience, redundancy of military communications, and anti-satellite countermeasures are no longer budgetary luxuries. They are existential necessities. Kosmos-2610 through 2613 have made that message clearer than any defense white paper.

The information war in space

Satellite imagery as a weapon of truth

One of the most remarkable innovations of this war is the systematic use of commercial satellite imagery as a fact-checking tool and counter-propaganda weapon. When Ukraine announces it has destroyed the jamming station at Kerch, it is satellite images — probably from ICEYE or Planet Labs — that confirm the destruction. Orbital proof has replaced diplomatic assertions.

This orbital transparency is a revolution in the information war. Russia can deny its strikes on civilians, its troop movements, its destruction of infrastructure — but satellites see everything, and the images are accessible to any journalist or analyst with a commercial subscription. Putin has lost the monopoly on truth, and that is partly thanks to the artificial stars above our heads.

The race toward orbital concealment

In response, Russia is investing in camouflage and concealment techniques — thermal nets over its positions, nighttime maneuvers, equipment movements during satellite overpass windows. These tactical adaptations testify to the real impact of Ukrainian satellites: if Russia is hiding, it is because it knows it is being watched.

But the race is unequal. ICEYE-X36 is a SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite — it sees through clouds, at night, in the rain. Thermal nets do not blind it. Optical camouflage does not fool it. That is why Moscow judged it necessary to send four satellites to intimidate it directly in orbit. When you cannot hide, you try to eliminate the observer.

The implications for international diplomacy

The silence of institutions in the face of the orbital threat

The UN, the Disarmament Committee, international organizations — all have responded with a discouraging institutional slowness to the militarization of space. Debates on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) have continued for decades, always blocked by the same Russian and Chinese vetoes. Meanwhile, the Kosmos are hunting ICEYE-X36.

The paradox is brutal: the institutions meant to prevent the militarization of space are paralyzed by the very actors practicing it. The West must find alternative forums — coalitions of like-minded nations, bilateral agreements, industry standards — to create safeguards that multilateral treaties can no longer guarantee.

Finland, Sweden, and NATO: an underestimated geopolitical space asset

The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO in 2023 and 2024 carries a spatial dimension that is often underestimated. Finland, home of ICEYE, is now an Alliance ally whose commercial assets are directly targeted by Russia. An attack on ICEYE-X36 — even an indirect one — could theoretically invoke Article 5. That is not trivial.

Finland's integration into NATO enriches the Alliance not only militarily but also technologically. Finnish commercial space capabilities, Baltic defense industries, the Nordic tradition of digital innovation — all of this strengthens the Alliance's space and cyber posture against a Russia that has not abandoned space as a theater of confrontation.

Ukrainian innovation as a model of resilience

Learn, adapt, survive

Ukraine has demonstrated an unprecedented capacity for technological and doctrinal adaptation since 2022. Against the Volna Kupol Garant jammers, it developed drones more resilient to electromagnetic interference. Against Russian spy satellites, it struck ground control stations. Against Russian advances, it mobilized commercial intelligence tools that no conventional army had envisioned using at this scale.

This culture of permanent adaptation is perhaps the most valuable lesson of this war. It was not born from an established doctrine, but from the absolute necessity of surviving against an enemy larger, better armed, and theoretically better equipped. Constraint generated innovation. War produced combat engineers.

Public-private cooperation as a war doctrine

The relationship between Ukraine and private companies like ICEYE, SpaceX, Palantir, and Clearview AI is an unprecedented model of public-private partnership in wartime. These companies did not merely supply hardware — they co-built doctrines, adapted their products to frontline needs, and sometimes took on considerable financial and political risks.

This model is difficult to replicate in other militaries, constrained by bureaucratic limitations, endless acquisition cycles, and technological sovereignty requirements. But it offers an essential avenue for reflection for Western defense planners: how to integrate private-sector agility into rigid military structures? Ukraine has begun to answer — by force of circumstance.

The strategic cost to Russia

A space arms race Moscow can no longer afford

Russia is spending considerable resources to maintain its military space presence amid sweeping economic sanctions. The Russian space budget has been severely hit by restrictions on electronic components, Western technologies, and access to international markets. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has accumulated delays and failures since 2022.

Launching four new spy satellites from Plesetsk represents a massive investment — but also a calculated risk. If Ukraine manages to destroy several ground control stations, or if the Kosmos themselves are degraded by a Ukrainian or allied countermeasure, Russia will have spent hundreds of millions of dollars for zero result. The cost war is also a space war.

Moscow's allies in space: China lying in wait

China is watching this space war with obvious strategic interest. Beijing is developing its own anti-satellite capabilities — ASAT missiles, blinding lasers, inspector satellites — and drawing lessons from the Ukrainian conflict. If Russia manages to intimidate and neutralize commercial satellites without triggering Article 5, China will take note for Taiwan.

Space has become a theater of great-power competition where norms are still being defined and power relationships are taking shape. The West cannot afford to let Russia impose its own rules in orbit by default. What is happening with ICEYE-X36 today could prefigure what will happen to NATO communications satellites tomorrow.

The future of war in space

Toward a collective space defense doctrine

Collective space defense is NATO's next great challenge. Allies are beginning to share orbital surveillance data, coordinate their responses to Russian provocations in space, and develop protection systems for critical satellites. But the road is long between awareness and operational capability.

Initiatives like the Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC), led by the United States, are progressively integrating data from European allies. Bilateral space surveillance-sharing agreements are multiplying. But the Ukrainian emergency has shown that these structures, still too slow and too fragmented, must be radically accelerated.

The next frontier: geostationary orbit

The current confrontation is taking place primarily in low Earth orbit (LEO) — between 400 and 1,000 km altitude. But the true long-term strategic prize is geostationary orbit (GEO), at 36,000 km, where military communications satellites, weather satellites, and early warning systems reside. An attack in GEO would be infinitely harder to attribute, counter, and repair.

Russia and China are developing capabilities to threaten geostationary satellites. The West must build a comprehensive space resilience architecture — from LEO to GEO — before the next crisis exposes its vulnerabilities. The war in Ukraine began in the trenches of the Donbas. It could end in geostationary orbit if the West does not act.

What this space war says about Putin

A calculated escalation strategy

Vladimir Putin has consistently played on the threshold strategy — identifying the point just below the Western reaction threshold and exploiting it to the maximum. Sending four satellites to intimidate ICEYE-X36 follows this logic: it is hostile, but not explicit enough to force a formal NATO response. That is Putin's language: the threat without the declaration.

But this strategy has its limits. Every Russian escalation in space forces the West to respond — investments in space defense, development of countermeasures, strengthening of partnerships. The permanent threshold tactic accelerates the militarization of space that Moscow claims to want to avoid. Putin creates the world he says he fears.

Russia's growing technological isolation

Western sanctions have deprived the Russian space industry of essential components, foreign expertise, and commercial markets. Roscosmos has lost its international launch contracts, its ESA partnerships, and access to advanced semiconductor technologies. Russia can still launch military satellites — but for how much longer?

The progressive degradation of Russian space capabilities is a reality that four Kosmos satellites cannot mask. These may be the last representatives of a space power in accelerated decline. Russia is burning its strategic reserves in a war it cannot win, and space is no exception to that inexorable equation.

Conclusion: Space, the last bulwark of Ukrainian freedom

A battle that transcends Ukraine

The space war playing out 13 kilometers from ICEYE-X36 is not only Ukraine's war. It is the war of every democracy that depends on commercial satellites for its security, its communications, its navigation. It is the war of every citizen whose daily life is connected to orbital infrastructure. When Russia threatens ICEYE-X36, it threatens the global system on which our digital civilization rests.

Ukraine is fighting for its survival in orbit as much as on the ground. And the international community, despite its slowness and its ambiguities, must understand that allowing Moscow to impose its rules in space — is allowing it to impose its rules on the world. The frontier of freedom now runs through low Earth orbit as well.

A call for consistency and action

Ukraine's strikes on Dubna and Kerch are acts of spatial self-defense. Ukraine is defending its ability to see, to communicate, and to survive. The West must support this defense — legally, diplomatically, and technologically. It must invest in orbital surveillance capabilities, in the resilience of commercial constellations, and in a collective space defense doctrine worthy of the name.

The next major phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war may play out more in the skies than in the trenches. ICEYE-X36 is the symbol of that reality: a small commercial satellite, hunted by four Russian orbital pursuers, continuing to guide Ukrainian forces with a precision that decades of military doctrine never anticipated. Ukraine is winning this war in space too — and the West would do well to take notice.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Editorial positioning

This essay is written by Maxime Marquette, columnist-analyst, and not by a field journalist. The facts and figures cited come exclusively from the sources listed at the bottom of this page, all dated and verifiable. No fact has been invented, no fictional source cited.

Acknowledged limits and biases

My editorial line is pro-Ukraine: I believe Ukraine is fighting for fundamental democratic values and deserves the unwavering support of the West. I consider Putin and his regime to be the primary threat to peace and security in Europe. This bias is assumed, transparent, and consistent with the editorial doctrine of this publication. The technical analyses on satellites are based on public data; I am not a space engineer and some conclusions remain expert interpretations based on available sources.

Sources

Primary sources

RBC-Ukraine — Spiegel: 4 Russian Kosmos-2610 to 2613 satellites pursue ICEYE-X36 at 13 km — June 24, 2026

RBC-Ukraine — Ukraine destroys the Volna Kupol Garant Starlink jamming system in Kerch — June 24, 2026

Secondary sources

Intent Press — Russkiy Kupol Simferopol, sale of Starlink electronic warfare equipment at $1.5M/unit — June 20, 2026

Defence Industry — Operational deployment of the Volna Kupol Garant system to jam Starlink — June 20, 2026

Xinhua — Ukraine strikes the Dubna space communications center — June 22, 2026

YouTube — Ukraine strikes satellite communications centers in Dubna and Vladimir — June 25, 2026