Authored by RFE/RL staff via OilPrice.com,
US officials publicly accused Russia of threatening a Finnish-operated commercial satellite that provides imagery and intelligence to Ukraine and other nations, calling the move "deliberately reckless."
In response to the accusations, made during a United Nations debate on October 21, Russia broadly described US claims as "absurd" and accused Washington of its own "aggressive military space ambitions."
The back-and-forth came days after a Russian military satellite known as Kosmos-2612 moved "dangerously" near to ICEYE-X36, a satellite registered in the United States and operated by a Finnish company called ICEYE.
The Russian satellite came "exceptionally close" - within 200 meters, by some estimates - something that space officials and amateur satellite watchers said was extremely unusual.
"This was not a routine conjunction or 'fly by,'" LeoLabs, an aerospace intelligence company, told RFE/RL. "The behavior is consistent with sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations."
ICEYE-X36 carries a radar technology that can gather detailed terrestrial images, even through cloud cover. The Finnish company in January signed a contract with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to provide intelligence.
Kosmos-2612 "exhibited threatening behavior by intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite," Brian Hardesty, an adviser to the US Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament, said READ MORE AT SOURCE »
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