The close approach was to ICEYE-X36, a satellite owned by the US arm of the Finnish company ICEYE, which has supplied radar imagery to Ukraine since 2022. The pass was tracked by LeoLabs, a US space-tracking company, which reported the closest approach at about 500 metres while cautioning that the estimate was uncertain. By Monday the Russian satellite had begun to move away.
The incident follows months of manoeuvring. In May, four of the six satellites launched in April moved close to an ICEYE satellite. ICEYE's chief executive, Rafal Modrzewski, told Reuters the company moved its own satellite, which appeared to prompt further Russian manoeuvres. A Ukrainian official told Axios that Ukraine's military works with ICEYE and uses its capabilities, but said it was unclear whether ICEYE-X36 itself supports Ukraine.
Analysts say the episode is notable because Russia has mostly performed such manoeuvres against Western military satellites rather than commercially owned ones. In early 2020 two Russian satellites moved close to USA 245, a US spy satellite, and in September 2025 Germany's defence minister said two Russian Luch-Olymp satellites were tracking two Intelsat satellites used by the German military.
Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at TU Delft, called the approach highly unsafe: "equivalent to placing your car on the freeway within 10 cm of another driving car". The purpose is unknown, he said. It could be a dry run for a future attack, provocation or scare tactics, and/or a test of how satellite operators react, fitting a pattern of hybrid warfare.
Mark Hilborne of King's College London described it as the first time a country has made such a manoeuvre against a commercial satellite without consent, and noted some reports put the distance at less than 30 metres. He said the choice of target suggests Russia does not distinguish between commercial and military satellites, a concern given militaries, including Ukraine's, increasingly rely on commercial assets.
Juliana Suess of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs said a gap of less than 5 kilometres is "essentially a hop and a skip in space", and could enable Russia to intercept data or disrupt service via jamming. A kinetic attack is possible but, she argued, less likely. Russia calls such spacecraft "inspector satellites" and in 2020 described the manoeuvres as common practice by many countries. Western military officials told Reuters that Russian interference with Western space systems has increased significantly since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.