{"id":742647,"date":"2026-02-04T22:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/742647\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T22:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T22:06:19","slug":"space-war-fears-erupt-as-russia-intercepts-european-satellites-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/742647\/","title":{"rendered":"Space war fears erupt as Russia intercepts European satellites | World | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Russian<\/a> spacecraft have intercepted the communications of more than a dozen important European<\/a> satellites, defence officials have revealed. These interceptions risk compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites<\/a> and also raise the risk that Russia will seek to move, or even crash them.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft – known as Luch-1 and Luch-2 – have increasingly shadowed European satellites amid heightened tensions between Russia<\/a> and the West, particularly since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> nearly four years ago. While the satellites in question are mainly used for TV services, they also carry sensitive official information and some military communications.<\/p>\n

Orbital data has revealed that Luch-2 has approached 17 European satellites since its launch in March 2023. Both satellites are suspected of “doing sigint [signals intelligence] business”, Major General Michael Traut, head of the German military’s space command, told the Financial Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Belinda Marchand, chief science officer at US company Slingshot Aerospace, said Luch-2 was currently “in proximity” to Intelsat 39, a key geostationary satellite that serves Europe and Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A senior European intelligence official explained that the spacecraft deliberately position themselves within the narrow data beams transmitted from Earth-based stations to the satellites. Maj Gen Traut warned that this leaves the satellites vulnerable to interference or even destruction if hostile actors capture unencrypted command data.<\/p>\n

This revelation comes after German<\/a> Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said in September that Intelsat satellites<\/a> used by German armed forces and other European countries were being shadowed by Russian satellites. Intelsat is a US-Luxembourg firm operating more than 50 satellites used by private companies and government agencies.<\/p>\n

“Satellite networks are an Achilles heel of modern societies<\/a>. Whoever attacks them can paralyse entire nations,” Mr Pistorius warned. “The Russian activities are a fundamental threat to all of us, especially in space. A threat we must no longer ignore.”<\/p>\n

He urged NATO<\/a> allies to consider building similar “offensive capabilities” in orbit, while noting that Germany plans to invest some \u00a331billion in space projects aimed at strengthening military space systems against sabotage.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in France<\/a> – Europe’s largest government spender in space – top military space official, Major General Vincent Chusseau, recently warned of intensifying “hostile or unfriendly” activity in space, particularly by Vladimir Putin<\/a>. He explained that the Ukraine conflict shows “space is now a fully-fledged operational domain,” telling Reuters that there has been a significant spike in hostile activity since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n

In 2018, France publicly accused Moscow of attempting to spy on its secret communications by sneaking up on a Franco-Italian military satellite with a prowling spacecraft a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Russian spacecraft have intercepted the communications of more than a dozen important European satellites, defence officials have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[163890,7668,219711,219710,2000,299,5187,219708,36,1824,219715,219712,219714,2821,2046,332,219709,413,146920,219713],"class_list":{"0":"post-742647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-achilles-heel","9":"tag-boris-pistorius","10":"tag-crash-them","11":"tag-defence-officials","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-satellites","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-hostile-activity","19":"tag-luch-1-and-luch-2","20":"tag-major-general-michael-traut","21":"tag-nato","22":"tag-putin","23":"tag-russia","24":"tag-signals-intelligence","25":"tag-space","26":"tag-space-warfare","27":"tag-tv-services"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116014637827432710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}