European intelligence and military officials strongly suspect that Russian space vehicles could have intercepted around a dozen European satellites.
This may well expose European vulnerabilities allowing Moscow to retrieve sensitive information that could disable spacecraft.
The Financial Times reported citing European military, intelligence and space authorities who are observing Russian space activity in orbit, according to officials.
Russian satellites known as Luch-1 and Luch-2 have been tracked for many years by Western civilian and military space agencies.
Over the past three years since Vladimir Putin illegally invaded Ukraine Moscow has stepped their manoeuvres tracking EU satellites.
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Ground based telescope observations have been watching Russian spacecraft moving within close proximity to Europe’s most important satellites.
Last September the German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned, “Satellite networks are an Achilles heel of modern societies. Whoever attacks them can paralyse entire nations,” and Europe could no longer ignore this.
Pistorius added at the time, “We know that the conflicts of the future will no longer be confined to the Earth. They will also be fought openly in orbit.
“Russia and China have rapidly expanded their space warfare capabilities in recent years: they can jam, blind, manipulate, or kinetically destroy satellites. In space, there are no borders or continents.
“There, Russia and China are our direct neighbours.”
A senior European intelligence official told the paper that many Western satellites are transmitting unencrypted data and have advanced computer systems onboard for encryption purposes.
Once the data is intercepted and recorded this could interfere with satellite operations later, this will allow hostile states to transmit false data commands to satellites.
Major General Michael Traut, head of Germany’s military space command said, “Both satellites are suspected of doing signals intelligence business.”
The Sun reported, Norbert Pouzin, senior orbital analyst at Aldoria, a French satellite tracking company said, “They have visited the same families, the same operators, so you can deduce that they have a specific purpose or interest.
“These are all NATO-based operators.”
He added, “Even if they cannot decrypt messages, they can still extract a lot of information … they can map how a satellite is being used, work out the location of ground terminals, for example.”
