Star Wars: Has Russia's war with Ukraine gone intergalactic?

Has space become a new frontier in Russia's war with Ukraine? Russian military satellite Cosmos-2612 carried out a manoeuvre between October 15 and 18 that brought it “dangerously close” to Ukrainian commercial satellite, Iceye-X36. The move was described by US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security as "threatening". Operated by Finnish company Iceye, Iceye-X36 is a Finnish-American civilian satellite equipped with Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) to provide satellite images to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The US State Department said Russia's tactic was consistent with “in-orbit military operations”. Analysts specialising in space surveillance have been following Cosmos-2612 since its launch in April. "Cosmos-2612 was one of six satellites launched in total. It was immediately apparent that this wasn't a classic deployment. As soon as they took off, the satellites started changing orbit to pursue Iceye satellites,” said Norbert Pouzin, an orbital analyst at Aldoria, a French space surveillance firm. Cosmos-2612 took off on April 6, 2026 alongside Cosmos-2609, Cosmos-2610, Cosmos-2611, Cosmos-2613 and Cosmos-2614. KeepTrack, a site specialising in satelli...