Russia's Satellite Stalking and the npm Heist Nobody Stopped

Four Russian military satellites burned through significant amounts of fuel last week just to get closer to a single Finnish-American radar satellite that helps Ukraine see Russian troop movements. That is not a coincidence.

The satellites, designated Kosmos 2610 through 2613, launched together in mid-April from a Russian cosmodrome in the country's north. Within weeks, all four performed what orbital mechanics nerds call a "plane change" maneuver — they shifted the angle of their orbits relative to the equator by less than a degree. That sounds trivial until you realize plane changes are among the most fuel-expensive moves a satellite can make. You do not burn that kind of propellant unless you really want to be somewhere specific.

Where they wanted to be, specifically, was near ICEYE-X36, a commercial radar imaging satellite operated by ICEYE, a company with Finnish and American roots. ICEYE runs a constellation of synthetic aperture radar satellites that can see through clouds and darkness — a capability that matters enormously in a ground war where weather and night are constants. The company supplies imagery to the US military, European governments, and Ukraine's armed forces directly. ICEYE's CEO met personally with President Zelenskyy last year, so Russia is well aware of whose side this company is on.

The four Russian satellites are now orbiting within distances ranging from roughly 500 meters to about 22 kilometers of ICEYE-X36, all of them cruising in polar orbit about 340 miles above Earth. A retired Air Force space intelligence officer who flagged the maneuvers in a newsletter noted that Russian operators could now close that gap further with only minor additional adjustments. A fifth satellite from the same April launch appears to be running a similar playbook.

The honest answer to "what are these satellites actually capable of" is that nobody outside Russia really knows. Kosmos designations are deliberately vague — it is a catch-all label Russia uses for military spacecraft. They could carry inspection sensors, jamming equipment, directed energy systems, or they could essentially be very expensive tailgating vehicles designed to intimidate.

That last option is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Russia has a well-documented habit of probing allied defenses without necessarily pulling any triggers — sending strategic bombers toward European airspace, shadowing US naval vessels, that sort of thing. The same instinct appears to have migrated into orbit, where Russian spacecraft have previously been observed stalking American spy satellites in low-Earth orbit.

The difference here is the target is a commercial company, not a government asset. That blurs the lines of how adversaries respond and what protections apply. Space is increasingly where the early, ambiguous moves of modern conflict happen — and right now, Russia is making moves.