US warns of Russian and Chinese threats in space

When the Russian satellite – which can launch other satellites into orbit – maneuvered close to an American satellite last June, it was the latest move in a dangerous game of cat and mouse in space.

Cosmos 2558 has been seen following the USA 326 satellite since the Russian satellite was launched into space in 2022. But now it has come up with a surprise, releasing a smaller module that has begun moving even closer to the American satellite.

"This is the second time we've seen such an action from the Russian side," said DeAnna Burt, who at the time of the incident was director of operations for the United States Space Force.

"You have a satellite that has another satellite inside it, which we believe is a KK or Kinetic Kill vehicle, which will be able to move and rendezvous with another satellite and potentially damage it or photograph it or perform various actions," she added.

Burt retired in October 2025 and spoke to RFE/RL during a visit to Prague, hosted by the Aspen Institute. In an interview on January 30, she discussed threats to satellites from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as a "shadow" conflict that has been brewing since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Dangerous encounters in space

"We've seen what we would call approach and rendezvous operations, which means... flying around and observing the other satellite," Burt said, when asked about the incident in June last year.

The concern, she added, was whether “they were going to launch a destructive device” or whether it was “simply for surveillance and reconnaissance.” It turned out to be the latter. However, the situation remained alarming, and not just because of the risk of collision.

"What you're seeing in this development, these are all tests that gradually build a capability... hypothetically, if I were looking to develop a capability in space, I would first want to make sure it could identify targets, before I could hit them."

This is not the first time Burt has warned of such Russian threats.

The previous incident was briefly mentioned by the then-chief of space operations for the US Space Force, General John Raymond, in a statement to Time magazine in 2020.

"The way I picture this in my mind is like Russian matryoshka dolls," he said. "The second satellite came out of the first satellite."

In 2024, Raymond's successor, General Chance Saltzman, warned of a "Zero Day" if Russia deployed a nuclear weapon in space capable of destroying satellite capabilities.

That same year, a Pentagon claim that Russia had “likely” placed an anti-satellite weapon in space was denied by the Kremlin.

On January 21, meanwhile, an Atlantic Council report said the US is "unacceptably vulnerable" to such threats and called for the country to move towards "more robust satellite architectures."

Burt said this is now a top priority for the US: "Having the ability to withstand a strike and be able to recover... with satellites in storage that are ready to be launched."

An exercise conducted in 2023, codenamed Victus Know, set a new record for launching a satellite “from storage to operational capability in orbit within a week,” according to a Space Force announcement. But for Burt, that’s not enough.

"How do you do this on a large scale? We've done this in isolation, just once. How do we get to do this on a large scale, so that we can build sustainability," she said.

But this is the worst-case scenario, which Burt once described in a lecture as “a [Japan’s surprise attack on the US in Hawaii in 1941] Pearl Harbor in space.” Any such large-scale attack would also be self-defeating, as it would cause indiscriminate damage, destroying or disabling satellites belonging to Russia, China and other countries.

Signal jamming, lasers and robotic arms

There are many other, more sophisticated ways to disable satellites than just destroying them Star Wars-style.

“We saw in Ukraine that one of the first attacks was a cyberattack on a satellite communications network… And we have continued to see GPS jamming and satellite communications interference throughout this conflict,” Burt noted.

These are direct Russian attacks on US satellite capabilities.

"These attacks have had a very localized, non-kinetic effect, meaning they are jamming, knocking a satellite out of service for a period of time and then coming back into service once it leaves the jamming area. So it's very clear that the intent is to have a regional effect and to do it for show, not a global effect. This is something we see quite often," Burt said.

"Our enemies understand the importance of space, the ever-increasing dominance, as we call it 'semper supra'," she added.

Other anti-satellite capabilities include lasers placed on the ground to disrupt satellite communications. Burt said smaller powers, such as Iran and North Korea, also have such space capabilities, but the main threats, she said, come from Russia and China.

"The most concerning technology that China possesses is the robotic arm. So the ability to capture a satellite and transfer it from a functional orbit to a non-functional orbit essentially defeats the purpose of the satellite and renders it useless," she stressed.

Implications on Earth

Satellite security has implications for life on Earth. Everything from civilian GPS and weather forecasts to banking and communications depend on satellites.

The military implications of satellite disruptions can range from soldiers being unable to communicate, to the lack of satellite imagery and other intelligence information, to missile defense systems being completely unable to respond to attacks.

"Everyone is vulnerable" to this, Burt warned.

"I'm not necessarily saying it's our Achilles' Heel. But I think everyone depends on it. And yes, it would make the fighting more difficult. But I would also say that our fighters would continue to fight, and the rest of the forces would continue to fight as well... But it would definitely make it more difficult, and I think we would lose more lives if space were not accessible for joint warfare."