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Embarrassed by Ukraine, Russia Turns to Space to Even the Odds Against US

Wes O'Donnell
5 min readMay 22, 2024
Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Since 2022, I’ve been extremely critical of the Russian military circus taking place in Ukraine — specifically, the archaic way Russia fights its wars.

And while Russia has incrementally improved on the Ukrainian battlefield, there is one theater of war where they are particularly advanced: Space.

To underestimate Russia here would be a grave mistake — after all, we’re talking about the people who put both the first satellite and the first human in space.

Also, the infrastructure for Russia’s space industrial base is largely intact; albeit, starting to suffer from a lack of Western tech thanks to sanctions.

Still, that hasn’t stopped Russia from weaponizing space.

Today, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed that Russia launched a satellite last week into low Earth orbit that the Pentagon believes to be a counter-space weapon — presumably capable of attacking other satellites.

What’s more, Russia deployed this new counter-space weapon into the same orbit as a US government satellite.

But this isn’t the first time Russia has launched a payload like this.

In 2019, Russia launched an “inspector” satellite, Kosmos 2542, from the…

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Wes O'Donnell
Wes O'Donnell

Written by Wes O'Donnell

US Army & US Air Force Veteran | Global Security Writer | Intel Forecaster | Law Student | TEDx Speaker | Pro Democracy | Pro Human | Hates Authoritarians

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