Russian Spy Satellites Have Intercepted EU Communications Satellites
8 85European security officials believe two Russian space vehicles have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over the continent. From a report: Officials believe that the likely interceptions, which have not previously been reported, risk not only compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites but could also allow Moscow to manipulate their trajectories or even crash them.
Russian space vehicles have shadowed European satellites more intensively over the past three years, at a time of high tension between the Kremlin and the West following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For several years, military and civilian space authorities in the West have been tracking the activities of Luch-1 and Luch-2 -- two Russian objects that have carried out repeated suspicious maneuvers in orbit.
Both vehicles have made risky close approaches to some of Europe's most important geostationary satellites, which operate high above the Earth and service the continent, including the UK, as well as large parts of Africa and the Middle East. According to orbital data and ground-based telescopic observations, they have lingered nearby for weeks at a time, particularly over the past three years. Since its launch in 2023, Luch-2 has approached 17 European satellites.
8 comments
Re:click bait title? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @06:42PM (#65969488)
Yes its a clickbait title.
The US also does this - check out the Orion/Mentor satellites, or the JUMPSEAT satellites. Public astronomers have tracked satellites launched by US launchers moving into position behind other countries communications satellites, where they can capture the overspill of the transmissions sent to those satellites - they have huge dishes for just that purpose.
But oh noes, Russia or China is doing it, must call them out on it!!
Re: Eh (Score: 5, Informative)
by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @04:37PM (#65969322)
A bad actor doesn't have to be competent at troublemaking to be dangerous. In addition, Russian electronic warfare systems are known to be generally decent unfortunately.
Re:Eh (Score: 5, Insightful)
by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @04:54PM (#65969358)
Not just that, given the state of the Russian army and how it's struggling to just hold on to Ukraine, there is nothing they could do even w/ all the information they that NATO had to offer. They've hollowed out much of their country except for Moscow and St Petersburg. This is worse than it was during Operation Barbarossa. At least that time, the Soviet Union was invaded. Today, this is a war Russia started, and one they can stop anytime, if saving Putin's face is not on the agenda
If 1990 exposed Saudi Arabia as a paper tiger during Operation Desert Shield, 2022 did the same for Russia in Ukraine. Tomorrow, if the PLA wanted, they could just walk into Primorsky and Krasnoyarsk and annex them. Heck, they could easily overrun and conquer all of Russia from the Urals to the Bering Sea
Re:Eh (Score: 5, Informative)
by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @06:05PM (#65969450)
No, I meant that after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it was expected that Saudi Arabia would be next. Prior to that, it was thought that the Saudis were a regional military heavyweight. But instead, it was the US that had to scramble to put military assets in place in Saudi Arabia, so that Saddam didn't go on to invade them. That is what exposed Riyadh as a paper tiger - a country that theoretically looked formidable, but in reality, couldn't even have defended themselves if their lives depended on it
We've actually seen it more recently as well. In 2020, when Saudi oil installations and even Riyadh airport were being hit by Houthi missiles, there was no retaliation by Riyadh. One thing I've heard was that after spending billions on US military toys, the Saudis are extremely protective of those assets, and would rather lose personnel than those things they paid good money for. When they can't even intimidate the Houthis, the less said about their military capabilities, the better
Re:Eh (Score: 5, Informative)
by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @06:42PM (#65969486)
The Russians don't currently have the capability to transport humans to orbit and back.
Sounds Very Sinister And James Bondish (Score: 5, Insightful)
by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @04:08PM (#65969266)
This sounds quite sinister and James Bond-ish. Is Ernst Stavro Blofeld behind the satellite interceptions?
But when we read the article we see things like this:
European officials believe Luch-2 is a signals intelligence 'interceptor' and are concerned that sensitive, unencrypted information is being accessed by Russia.
What the actual fuck?! If it is sensitive information, then why is it unencrypted?
I'm going to have to assume that the fault here is in the article's author. They have to have fucked up the details. Surely, European officials aren't that fucking stupid.
Europe stopped sharing intelligence information (Score: 5, Insightful)
by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2026 @04:48PM (#65969340)
With America shortly after Trump was elected because it kept getting leaked, again.
So I have no doubt that Russia is going to have to start going back directly to the source to get intelligence information on Europe. Since their asset can only do so much.
Re:No encryption in 2019?! (Score: 5, Informative)
by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Thursday February 05, 2026 @02:44AM (#65969856)
Plausible; but in that case, you would do what you could to avoid using that platform for "sensitive" data, right? Mundane stuff, sure; no big deal. Confidential stuff: no.
For communication *through* the satellite, the communication platform just passes data. The data can be encrypted whether the communication platform supports encryption or not. An Ethernet cable doesn't support encryption either, and no one cares.
The issue is communication *to* the satellite — commands to, for example, tell it to move to a higher or lower orbit, to change which way its antennas are pointed, or to begin a de-orbit or graveyard orbit burn. They're saying *that* is not encrypted. If true, then it's not that the platform can't be used for sensitive data so much as that you can't trust that someone won't inject their own signal and tell it to launch itself into a graveyard orbit 200 miles higher up and render the satellite useless, to power down all of its transponders, or to crash into a nearby satellite.
If true, that's deeply disturbing. It seems more likely that there is some encryption, but that it is weak or thoroughly broken.