WW3 fears as 4 Russian satellites make 'alarming' move towards US spacecraft

World War III fears have been sparked after at least four Russian satellites changed orbit in what appears to be a move to track an American spacecraft. Washington and the Kremlin are engaged in a race for the stars militarily and Vladimir Putin has launched a number of ‘purpose-unknown’ satellites in recent years since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Some speculate the Russian craft could be used to knock out Western satellites to essentially plunge the US and allies into communications blackout in the event of war. Now analysts claim a new joint American-Finnish radar surveillance satellite is being tracked by Russian spacecraft.

According to the cyber and intelligence tracking firm Integrity ISR, Greg Gillinger, a retired Air Force space intelligence officer, said Moscow satellites had now changed their orbits to match that of the US-Finnish craft, named ICEYE-X36.

Gillinger said the Russian Kosmos 2610, 2611, 2612 and 2613 satellites had changed their orbit angles each by just under a degree to bring them level with the ICEYE-X36.

Mr Gillinger wrote: “The manoeuvres brought the 4 satellites into nearly co-planar orbits with ICEYE-X36.

“We do not know Russia’s intentions or the capabilities of these particular satellites, however manoeuvring into a co-planar orbit is alarming. Plane matching is the first (and most fuel expensive) step to conducting Rendezvous Proximity Operations (RPO) likely necessary for the Russian satellites to target (kinetically or non-kinetically) ICEYE-X36.”

Competition between Russia and the West in space has intensified in recent months. In Februray two Russian spacecraft intercepted the communications from more than a dozen important European satellites, defence officials revealed.

The interceptions risked compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites and also raise the risk that Russia will seek to move, or even crash them.

A senior European intelligence official explained the Kremlin spacecraft deliberately position themselves within the narrow data beams transmitted from Earth-based stations to the European satellites.

Major General Traut warned the tactic leaves the Western satellites vulnerable to interference or even destruction if hostile actors capture unencrypted command data.