Russian Spy Satellites Have Intercepted EU Communications Satellites (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0180731712
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/02/04/2046202/russian-spy-satellites-have-intercepted-eu-communications-satellites
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/russian-spy-satellites-have-intercepted-eu-communications-satellites/
> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/russian-spy-satellites-have-intercepted-eu-communications-satellites/
Re: Eh (Score:4, Insightful)
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: (Score:3)
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 Saud
Re: (Score:2)
I heard Russia is out of missiles and Russian soldiers are having to fight with shovels because they don't have guns. But they're so tough that they're going to invade Germany and France next.
> If 1990 exposed Saudi Arabia as a paper tiger during Operation Desert Shield
Did you mean Iraq? I don't remember the US attacking Saudi Arabia but maybe I've flipped timelines again.
Re: (Score:2)
The Russians have never lost the capability to transport humans to orbit and back. The US were heavily dependent on the Russian tech.
Sounds Very Sinister And James Bondish (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:1)
> Surely, European officials aren't that ... stupid.
We hope.
Re: Sounds Very Sinister And James Bondish (Score:2)
exactly - satellite communications intercept is not the big story here... if the Russians care to make a big effort to intercept they likely know that at least some of the sensitive data isn't sufficiently well encrypted that it becomes interesting to capture.
Europe stopped sharing intelligence information (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? It's not like the west doesn't try to intercept russian signals. So stop being such a hypocrite, and just make sure you have better encryption.
command data (Score:2)
"sensitive information—notably command data for European satellites—is unencrypted, because many were launched years ago without advanced onboard computers or encryption capabilities."
Pretty surprising that the command data isn't encrypted, that's a severe vulnerability. I don't know how old those satellites are but it wouldn't take a very "advanced onboard computer" to implement some basic encryption.
click bait title? (Score:2, Insightful)
So did they intercept the communications satellites, or did they intercept the communications OF THE satellites? If the latter, fix your title op.
Re: (Score:1)
It's the same click bait slop title from the Arstechnica story, nothing new from them.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a big difference. One is an act of war, the other is a radio.
Re: (Score:3)
The former, which is why TFS talks about space vehicles and "risky close approaches", rather than ... whatever language might be appropriate for snooping on transmissions.