During a two-week series of movements that began on September 30th, Russian controllers steered the Kosmos 2612 spy satellite within a few hundred meters, or less, of the ICEYE X36 Earth-observation spacecraft.

The U.S.-registered satellite is part of the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation operated by Finland-headquartered ICEYE. The purpose behind the close approach is no mystery to observers. Since its launch in 2024, ICEYE X36 has been a key part of a fleet providing critical intelligence to Ukraine in its ongoing defence against invading Russian forces.

Experts think that during the recent maneuvers, Russia may have tried to intercept the satellite’s data transmissions, or worse, practice for its future destruction.

Writing about the maneuvers on X, astronomer Jonathan McDowell called the actions “unprecedented” and “the first [low-Earth-orbit] rendezvous of two active satellites where the owner of one of the satellites did not give approval.”

To Greg Gillinger, Senior Vice President for Strategy and Development at space intelligence company Integrity ISR, the latest exercise was a culmination of an orbital campaign months in the making. Gillinger had been keeping an eye on Kosmos 2612 since the satellite’s deployment on a Russian Soyuz rocket in April 2026 and was the first to flag that the mystery spacecraft was burning considerable propellant to align its orbital plane with that of ICEYE X36, as Supercluster reported earlier this year.

Gillinger’s latest calculations suggest that at its closest approach on October 18th, Kosmos 2612 may have been positioned a mere 330 feet (100 meters) away from X36.

“To me this looks to have been an operational test of a counterspace capability,” Gillinger told Supercluster in an email. “Specifics of the Cosmos 2612 mission remain unknown, but Russia has shown Kosmos 2612 to be highly maneuverable and capable of matching orbital plane, shape and position in a matter of days.”

Following the close approach, Kosmos 2612 began retreating from the ICEYE craft at a speed of around 25 kilometers per day. But Gillinger hinted that the exercise may be a portent of more sinister operations to come.

Despite the highly publicized struggles of Russia’s civilian space sector, Moscow has been consistently building up its military presence in space. Its co-orbital systems — those capable of closely trailing other satellites in orbit — are comfortably matching and possibly outperforming those operated by China and the U.S.

In fact, while all three, Russia, China and the U.S., have made close approaches to other nations’ satellites in the geostationary orbit — the region of space 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth where many intelligence and telecommunications satellites reside — Russia is the only player to have done so in the much more dynamic and treacherous environment of low-Earth orbit, Victoria Samson, chief director for space security and stability at Secure World Foundation (SWF), told Supercluster in an email.

“The U.S. and China have not conducted uncoordinated rendezvous and proximity operations with other countries' satellites in low Earth orbit, which is where ICEYE X36 is (roughly 560 km altitude),” said Samson, who is a co-author of the SWF’s Global Counterspace Capabilities Report.

She added that although Russia had previously shadowed U.S. satellites in low-Earth orbit, those encounters never approached this degree of severe physical proximity.

Previous demonstrations by other satellites from the Kosmos family were kept at an operational buffer of tens of kilometers — far beyond the two-kilometer limit generally considered a safe envelope to prevent accidental orbital collisions in near-Earth space. In 2020, an earlier Russian inspector satellite parked 18 miles (30 kilometers) away from the U.S. reconnaissance satellite USA 245.

Samson thinks that although Russia retreated from ICEYE X36 without causing visible physical damage, it may have successfully executed local electronic jamming or signal espionage.

“It's unclear what its intentions are or what Cosmos 2612 is capable of,” she said.

The drama in LEO is a new chapter in a long-standing saga of Russian aggression in space. Russia’s Luch-1 and Luch-2 satellites have been regularly spying on strategic adversary spacecraft in the geostationary orbit since 2014. The Luch duo has made frequent close approaches to Western spacecraft over the years, some as close as 3 miles (5 kilometers), and frequently followed individual targets for months on end.

Earlier this year, German military space command chief Major General Michael Traut admitted that the Luchs have been eavesdropping on European strategic communications in space for years. According to the RAND think tank, the satellites may be a part of Russia’s effort to “identify technical vulnerabilities embedded in NATO countries’ satellites.”

Apart from the technical muscle flexing, Russia’s maneuvers raise orbital safety concerns. In low-Earth orbit, satellites travel at vastly higher relative velocities than in the orderly geostationary ring. They also follow a wide range of distinct, criss-crossing trajectories, making the near-Earth environment highly chaotic. On top of that, the residual atmospheric drag closer to Earth frequently alters satellite trajectories, further increasing the unpredictability of a safe and controlled approach.

Other countries have previously conducted rendezvous and proximity maneuvers in LEO, but those were conducted either between operational spacecraft, such as the International Space Station and the arriving spacecraft, or using demonstration targets or pieces of space debris.

China, for example, has used its reusable orbital spaceplane to repeatedly release and capture various small satellites. Similarly, Japan-headquartered space sustainability company Astroscale conducted a release and capture demonstration with its Elsa-D mission in 2021, and in 2024 carried out a close-up inspection of a discarded Japanese rocket stage with the Adras-J mission. Those tests, however, were intended to verify peaceful technologies for space debris removal and in-orbit servicing.

Christopher Johnson, a space law researcher at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, told Supercluster that because the 1967 Outer Space Treaty fails to ban non-destructive proximity operations explicitly, Russia’s actions cannot technically be classified as illegal. However, the nations that host ICEYE operations—including Finland, the U.K., the U.S., and Poland—can use treaty mechanisms to demand that Russia cease intrusions.

“Based on the Outer Space Treaty, Article IX, the states where ICEYE has offices have a right to request consultations sovereign treaty right to request consultations about what Cosmos 2612 is up to,” Johnson said. “In turn, Russia has the sovereign treaty obligation to engage in those consultations.”

He added the ICEYE home states could go as far as imposing travel restrictions on diplomats and expelling them if Russia refused to cooperate.

Although Kosmos 2612 has for now backed away from ICEYE X36, Integrity ISR’s Gillinger warns that the threat may not be over. The satellites have not just briefly passed each other. The Russian satellite spent months aligning its orbital path with that of ICEYE X36 and may crawl back, using its onboard thrusters. Moreover, Kosmos 2612 is only one in a batch of five secretive Russian military spacecraft, each weighing some 600 kilograms, launched together in April into orbits that allowed them to sync their paths with X36 and another satellite of the ICEYE SAR constellation.

“We will see if there are further tests with the other four satellites — Cosmos 2610, 2611, 2613 and 2614 — in the coming weeks,” Gillinger said.