North Korea rejects US allegations over $6 billion Binance crypto heist

North Korea on Tuesday dismissed US allegations that it was behind a $6 billion cryptocurrency theft from Binance as "absurd rhetoric", accusing Washington of seeking to portray the country as a cybercriminal state and warning that US hostility could affect future diplomatic engagement.

Issued on: 03/11/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi, Vietnam, on March 2, 2019. © Jorge Silva, Reuters


North Korea on Tuesday dismissed as "absurd rhetoric" US allegations that it was behind a $6 billion cryptocurrency heist on the Binance platform, saying they proved Washington remained hostile towards it, state news agency KCNA said.

The denial issued by Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un, comes as Pyongyang has stayed silent on US President Donald Trump's overtures to resume summit diplomacy. Kim Yo Jong warned that North Korea had "issues to reconsider" over what it calls US hostility.

The FBI said at the weekend that North Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, in what could be the largest-ever financial heist.

"The FBI is trying to brand the DPRK as a 'cybercriminal state,' claiming that it obtained information that a hacking organisation 'supported' by the DPRK was involved in the incident," KCNA quoted Kim Yo Jong, a ruling party official, as saying. DPRK is a short form for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"But the US assertion is absurd rhetoric and nothing new," Kim said.

"It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the US misleads international public opinion as if all the cybercrimes in different parts of the world are our deeds."

Cybersecurity experts say North Korean hackers are among the world's most prolific crypto thieves and the proceeds help fund the country's weapons programmes. North Korea denies all allegations of its links to cryptocurrency theft and other cybercrimes.

North Korea is one of the world's most impoverished countries but has poured resources secured through illicit means and activities banned under UN Security Council resolutions into its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Kim Yo Jong said North Korea would "reconsider" unspecified issues in light of the "very unpleasant US hostile attitude". While she did not elaborate, North Korea has not publicly responded to Trump's offers to resume summit diplomacy, and experts have said Pyongyang may be weighing its options.

The FBI said members of a North Korean state-sponsored unit known as TraderTraitor were responsible for the Binance attack. Law enforcement had observed them converting the stolen assets to the cryptocurrency Ethereum, and expected them to launder the assets further.

Binance has said it has covered most of the assets stolen from the platform by using company money.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)

Democrats gain majority of US governors as minorities make history

04.11.2026

Photo: James D. Decamp/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Democrats are set to hold a majority of US governorships for the first time in around 15 years, according to projections from Tuesday's midterm elections.

The centre-left party is expected to control at least 26 of the country's 50 governorships, compared with at least 20 for conservative Republicans, with several races still undecided.

Before the elections, Republicans were governors of 26 states and Democrats 24.

Governorships were up for election in 36 of the 50 US states on Tuesday.

Democrats captured at least four governorships previously held by Republicans, with Keisha Lance Bottoms winning in Georgia, Rob Sand in Iowa, Gina Hinojosa in Texas and Amy Acton in Ohio.

Victories for black, Native American candidates

In an historic first, at least four black governors were elected in the same election.

In Georgia, Bottoms became the first black woman ever elected governor of a US state.

Democrat Wes Moore won re-election in Maryland, while fellow Democrat David Crowley was elected in Wisconsin to succeed outgoing Democratic Governor Tony Evers.

In Florida, Republican Byron Donalds was elected to succeed fellow Republican Ron DeSantis.

Before Tuesday's elections, only three black governors had been elected in US history, including Moore, each in a separate election.

Meanwhile, Democrat Deb Haaland was elected governor of New Mexico, becoming the first Native American woman to hold the office in US history.

Governors serve as the chief executives of their respective states, overseeing state administrations, implementing laws and shaping policies on issues such as education, health care and public safety.

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

ON THE GROUND

U.S. Midterms 2026: 

Georgians on the front lines of the people’s war against data centres

Artificial intelligence emerged as a major issue on the 2026 US midterm campaign trail, with opposition to data centres drawing supporters across partisan divides united over ecological worries, increased utility bills and business interests outweighing citizen concerns. Georgia, the top US market for data centre construction, has been on the front line of the struggle.

Issued on: 02/11/2026
FRANCE24
By: Leela JACINTO

File photo of a Meta data centre near Social Circle, Georgia, USA, taken September 5, 2026. © Mike Stewart, AP


Quilliam Barber surveyed his backyard on a beautiful fall morning – the towering trees shading the southern sun, early autumn leaves dotting the green lawn, a tuneful bird working the quiet of this rural Georgia district to its advantage – and let out a heavy, forlorn sigh.

“I feel terrible. It's right there,” said the 67-year-old retired truck driver, gesturing towards the sprawling open land behind his backyard. “It’s right up under my arm, you know. And I can do nothing about it.”

Quilliam Barber and his wife, Wilhemina Barber, take a break in their backyard in Coweta County in the southern US state of Georgia. © Leela Jacinto, FRANCE 24

The Barbers’ property abuts a massive, 800-acre tract earmarked for a hyperscale data centre in Georgia’s Coweta County in the Middle Chattahoochee River Basin, part of the wider Apalachicola Basin in southeastern USA.

His new neighbour, the Project Sail data centre, made headlines in early 2025, when the eye-popping scale of the plan came to light. The $17 billion venture, estimated to require roughly 900 megawatts of electricity and 9 million gallons of water, includes 13 buildings, each covering 378,000 square feet, taking the total land area to more than 4.9 million square feet, according to county filings.


Standing next to her husband, Wilhemina Barber knows that with such a mega project coming up next door, things are about to change – dramatically. “It’s very quiet and peaceful out here. We love it, I love it, he loves it. We’ve got a pretty clear feeling it's going to play an important role if they do put it right in our back door," she said.

Around two miles down the road, Ron Bockrath, picked up a poster from a pile on his kitchen buffet table. “Protect Coweta: No Data Center Here” read the yard sign in bold red.

Ron Bockrath puts up a resistance at home in Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia. © Leela Jacinto, FRANCE 24

Bockrath’s opposition to the data centre has kept him busy over the past few months. From organising collectives and filing lawsuits, to collecting petition signatures, his efforts are part of a multi-pronged community campaign to stop the Sail project.

Across the US, in cities and counties rich or poor, rural, urban or semi-urban, citizens are raging against the machine. Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the mega centres required to power it, emerged as one of the major campaign issues ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, popping up in debates and town hall gatherings, leaving many candidates scrambling to articulate a cogent position and their constituents dissatisfied. The public sentiment has been at odds with US President Donald Trump’s promotion of AI as “Superior Intelligence” (SI).

Community-led initiatives have targeted AI-driven surveillance systems, including cameras misused by law enforcement officials.

The backlash has at times been spearheaded by software engineers and geeks capable of hacking systems to identify guardrail weaknesses, and the gap between spin and reality. But with data centres, the mega infrastructure required to power AI, the pushback has been sweeping, drawing together Democrat and Republican supporters in a rare display of bipartisanship in a bitterly divided country.

That’s because they represent a confluence of concerns: from rising electricity bills, to environmental hazards affecting local communities and impacting global warming, to a public dissatisfaction over millionaires, billionaires, tech mandarins and financiers profiting from the new technology amid a cost-of-living crisis.

Georgia, a state that defined itself as a symbol of the “New South” after the American civil war, has kept up with the times. A technological boom, centred around Atlanta – “The capital of the New South” – has seen the area overtake Northern Virginia as the country’s top market for data centre construction.

It has left Georgians on the front lines of pitched, local battles in the people’s war against data centres.
A revamp from ‘rural conservation' to industrial district

At the entrance to the Bockrath property in Newnan, Western Coweta County, another yard sign proclaims the mission that has occupied the 83-year-old retired research scientist for months.

“NO Industrial Zoning. NO Data Center,” reads the sign, referring to a rezoning of this rural area into an industrial zone.

A yard sign outside the Bockrath residence in Newnan protests the rezoning of Coweta County from a rural to industrial area. © Leela Jacinto, FRANCE 24

In April, county commissioners in this traditionally Republican stronghold approved a zone code revamp from “rural conservation district” to industrial area by a narrow 3-2 vote.

Bockrath attended the meeting in a room packed with county residents, activists and journalists – and was dismayed by the proceedings.

“People were supposed to be allowed to speak – for or against. That's good if you've got a population that's somewhat equally divided, then it makes sense to give equal time to both sides. However, in this case, the local population, not just the Western Coweta County, but the entire county, wanted nothing to do with these data centers and the way they were being forced upon us. But they gave equal time to each side to speak,” he explained.

Project Sail is just one of at least five planned data centres in the county. Residents and collectives opposed to the various projects come together for countywide decision meetings. They also keep an eye on community initiatives across Coweta County, located around 50 miles southeast of Atlanta and home to around 146,158 people.

“Twenty minutes was allowed for opposition, which isn't really very long, considering the magnitude of this project. That may be legally okay, but morally, it’s not okay. I got there almost two hours before the meeting. The 20 minutes were up before I was allowed to speak. They’re supposed to give great credence to people living in the area, but they were not allowed to express their opinion,” he said.

The 2-3 vote was hailed by the commissioners who approved the rezoning. “This is a no-brainer for the county,” Commissioner Alphonso Smith told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I will stake my political career on it.”

A representative of the project’s developer, Prologis, a Fortune 500 company, said the rezoning would be transformative for the area and would generate tax revenues, the local newspaper reported. “The question isn’t if this site will be developed. It’s just how,” JC Witt, Prologis senior vice president of data centre investments told the commission meeting.

‘Miles of backup traffic’ for a signature drive

The rezoning vote sparked multiple initiatives aimed at reversing the decision.

Bockrath, along with some of his neighbours, including the Barbers, promptly filed two lawsuits in a Coweta County court, challenging the rezoning. The cases, filed in May, are currently making their way through the legal system.

Meanwhile a grassroots collective, Citizens for Rural Coweta, launched a campaign for a “home rule petition”, which under Georgia's Constitution allows residents to petition the county's court to amend or repeal resolutions. In counties with more than 50,000 residents, signatures from at least 10% of registered voters are required.

The signature drive saw Bockrath hit the road, knocking on doors to inform neighbours about the initiative. Local businesses across the county opened their doors for petition signings. Every week, venues and schedules were posted on the group’s social media accounts, followed by weekly updates.

The response was overwhelming, said Bockrath. “There were miles, literally miles of backup traffic to come in and sign these things,” he recounted with a smile.

Finally, on Friday, October 16, Citizens for Rural Coweta volunteers submitted boxes with more than 14,800 signatures to a county court. The 10% mark had been reached. Under Georgia's Constitution, the probate judge has 60 days after a petition is filed to determine whether it’s valid. If it is, the judge must call an election to be held between 60 and 90 days after the filing.
‘We need to speak the truth’

Community-led campaigns against data centres are taking up time and considerable mobilisation effort from citizens across the US.

Bockrath admits it can be discouraging at times but he believes he has no choice. “Somebody has to do it,” he maintained. “We can't just give up. I don't think we want to see our country, or the world for that matter, get that messed up.”

Volunteers have been drawn to the movement for a variety of reasons and causes, from the hyperlocal to global. For Bockrath, the motivation is primarily scientific.

The retired researcher is concerned about the massive amounts of water required to cool systems in mega data centres. In Georgia’s Fayette County, for instance, many households face low water pressure complications, while some Newton County residents have been unable to drink the murky, brown water trickling out of their taps.

Energy consumption and the impact on global warming is an issue that particularly worries Bockrath. “If you keep using more of our electricity, generating more heat, climate change is going to accelerate,” he said urgently before launching into a mini-lecture on global temperature percentages and melting polar ice caps.

Underlying all these issues, Bockrath notes, is the spinning of truth. “In studying science, one of the things you learn is that you don't need to necessarily agree with your advisor, or chairman. What you're trying to do is find the truth,” he explained. “I'm not sure if that's the case always in things like marketing, in sales. There, I think, the idea is to sell your product or your idea, truth may not be as important. But I think it is. And I think we need to speak the truth.”

Finding ‘another place to go’

Georgia’s data centre boom has been driven in large part by tax breaks and low electricity rates granted to many projects under outgoing Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who has held the state’s top post since 2019.

But while companies get cheap rates, the cost of electricity for households has been rising exponentially. New data centres are driving up utility bills in at least 13 states, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. A Bloomberg analysis last year found residents living near data centres were paying as much as 267% more a month for energy than five years ago.

The increase in utility bills is also adding to the cost-of-living crisis fueled by rising gas prices due to the Iran war. Coweta residents such as Bockrath are not persuaded by the arguments made by developers, and accepted by some commissioners, that data centres bring in tax revenues.

“At the state level, we've got Governor Kemp, who's been very, very pro-business. I think he's been so pro-business that he's forgetting about the citizens,” he said. “You can bring in tax revenue from a data center, but if the citizens are being made to bear that cost in terms of their electrical bills, how is that helping them? It's not. It's hurting them.”

It’s also hurting across ideological lines, making the resistance to AI, and data centres in particular, a rare bipartisan issue as the US prepares to vote in the midterms.

While Coweta County, like most rural areas outside Atlanta, has long been a Republican stronghold, Bockrath notes that volunteers never discuss their partisan inclinations. The octogenarian grandfather describes himself as an independent, voting "both ways" in the past, depending on candidate platforms and performance. Although he declines to divulge how he plans to vote on November 3, Bockrath expresses disappointment with Republicans who have failed to challenge some of Trump's policies. "The Republicans didn't say, hey, that's not right, which they should have," is all he's willing to say.

The anti-data centre movement, he explains, straddles partisan divides. Taking the example of the recent signature drive, Bockrath guesses that there had to be a mix of supporters of both parties. “To pick up almost 15,000 registered voters to sign a petition here, many of them had to have been Republican. Also, a number of them, I'm sure, are Democrat. It's not that much of a political issue. It shouldn't be. This is a humanity issue,” he said.

For Barber, it’s also a matter of being forced to lose his past and links to the land.

“I might have to relocate if I can. I feel terrible. I love this area. I grew up in this area. I raised my family here. I had kids, my grandkids, they all played, we played, in the woods out there,” he said. “But if they made me an offer, then yes, I would relocate.”

His wife listens silently, her eyes fixed on the grass. “I'd be sad. I'd be very sad because it's just like starting all over again,” she revealed. “But if push comes to shove, we've discussed it, if they offer us a price and if it's something that we can live with, we'll take it and we'll find another place to go.”

King Charles says he has greater understanding of 'horrors' of slavery, falls short of apology

King Charles III told the heads of 56 Commonwealth countries on Tuesday that he has a greater understanding of the horrors of slavery, calling it a "shameful chapter of history". This comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he was open to the United Kingdom apologising for the transatlantic slave trade.


Issued on: 03/11/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

A protester calls for reparations from Britain as King Charles III attends the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda, on November 3, 2026. © Matias Delacroix, AP


King Charles told Commonwealth leaders on Tuesday that his greater understanding of the horrors of slavery had made him more determined to address past wrongs, but they ​needed to look ‌to the future and ensure "evil need not have the last word".

The run ⁠up to the gathering of the 56 member states, which comprise mostly former British colonies, has been dominated by talk of whether Britain should ‌apologise or pay reparations for the role it played in the transatlantic slave trade.

READ MOREKing Charles confronts calls for slavery apology during Caribbean tour

While ⁠neither the king nor Britain has so far given such an apology or discussed paying reparations, both Charles and new prime minister Andy Burnham have talked of using the Commonwealth to ​address modern needs, by providing support on climate change, education and health.


Burnham has ‌also gone further than other prime ministers by saying he was open to Britain apologising for slavery and officials were holding talks with national leaders at the summit in Antigua and Barbuda to discuss what form that could ‌take.

"We cannot change the actions of those who came before us," Charles, the head of the Commonwealth, told leaders in his opening speech. "We can, ​however, learn from the past.

"The transatlantic trade in enslaved persons still casts a shadow over these islands and other members of our Commonwealth. As I have said before, that shameful chapter of history ​is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow."

Charles ​said the more he had "furthered my own understanding of the issues, through ​listening, learning and looking", the more committed he had become to finding ways for the different countries to build modern partnerships that can address the wrongs ​of the past.

He listed access to education, jobs and opportunities, as well as intra-Commonwealth trade and climate change resilience as ways of helping those "who struggle against hardship and disadvantage".

Burnham has also said he would like to discuss debt resets for smaller Commonwealth nations and has announced a £40 million ($54 million) investment into critical infrastructure in ⁠the Caribbean over the next three years.

"For, as any sailor navigating the seas knows, we cannot command the winds, least of ⁠all where the ​winds of yesterday have delivered us – but we can choose how we set our sail," Charles said.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)

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British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams: An Introduction - British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery

Eric Williams, in Capitalism and Slavery, presented four important themes: (1) slavery was an economic phenomenon; and thus racism was a...

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SLAVERY, CAPITALISM AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson

Americas rather than as a vital element of Britain’s history. In Capitalism · and Slavery (1944), the Trinidadian scholar Eric Williams stood alone

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Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery: debates, legacies and new directions for research | RHS

First published in the UK by André Deutsch in 1964, Williams’ classic text — ‘perhaps the most influential book written in the twentieth century on...

gla.achttps://eprints.gla.ac.uk  › 325342  › 1  › 325342.pdf

Historiographical afterlives of Capitalism and Slavery ( ...

Williams, E. (1944). Capitalism and slavery. The University of North Carolina Press. Williams, E. (1964). British historians and the West Indies. PNM...

ANALYSIS

Ukraine and Russia are taking the war underground as drones saturate the battlefield

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week heralded the success of Operation Veles, during which Kyiv sent troops deep into a disused gas pipeline in the Kupiansk region to confront Russian troops. These underground tactics, which Russian forces have been using for more than two years to slip past Ukrainian lines, are giving Kyiv a new strategy on the battlefield.


Issued on: 03/11/2026 

FRANCE24
By: Sébastian SEIBT

Images taken from a video published by Ukraine showing Operation Veles

 in a gas pipeline in Kupiansk region. © France Médias Monde Graphic Studio


After years of fighting raged across the fields and forests of Ukraine and up into the skies above them, a new front has opened up in the war: beneath the earth. The Ukrainian army has now taken the fight to the Russians in the network of disused underground gas pipelines and tunnels around the town of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s east, the New York Times reported at the end of October.

For almost two weeks, the Ukrainian army has been showing Western media outlets the grim reality of its efforts to seize control of a gas pipeline that passes beneath the Oskil River and into this frontline city that the Russians have been fighting to capture.

Kyiv in October launched Operation Veles, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week described as a “great success”. Throughout the campaign, specially trained and equipped Ukrainian soldiers advanced 15 kilometres along a gas pipeline with a diameter of just 1.2 meters to secure the tunnel’s entry.

The president said that troops had also managed to “eliminate” around a hundred Russian soldiers and take more than 30 more prisoners during the fierce fighting that raged unseen in this underground battlefield.

Huseyn Aliyev, a specialist on the war in Ukraine at the University of Glasgow, said that the operation marked Ukraine’s adoption of tactics long practiced by Moscow.

“It is becoming very widespread, but it's not a new thing – Russians were the ones who started using it,” he said. “This is the first time I know when Ukrainians have started using the same methods.”
A winning tactic

While Ukraine was not the first side to take the fight into the industrial pipelines criss-crossing much of the country, Zelensky said that Kyiv had now made it their own.

“Ukrainian warriors have successfully transformed this tactic, modernised it, and made it much more sophisticated and technologically advanced," he said.

Will Kingston-Cox, a specialist in Russia and the Ukraine war at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona, said that Moscow had previously used these tunnels to slip past Ukraine’s defences.

“One early example that I was thinking about was Avdiivka in January of 2024, where we saw Russian troops reaching the rear of the Ukrainian fortified position through what appears to have been a drainage conduit,” he said.

The Russian army has subsequently used this new tactic to retake Kursk from Ukrainian control, then in the Kupiansk region, where Ukrainians soldiers fought them for each foot of the pipeline tunneling through the earth.

Ryhor Nizhnikau, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said that these tactics were only made possible by the network of Soviet-era gas pipelines and other tunnels that once brought Russian natural gas across Ukraine into Europe.

“This is a new battlefield, but it’s much smaller in scale,” he said. “You can only operate in the network of pipelines that exists. But the fact is that we do see this network being used much more intensively over the past year.”
The map and the territory

Nizhnikau said that these underground networks were also found in the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as well as in parts of Zaporizhzhia.

Gustav Gressel, a military analyst at Austria’s National Defence Academy, said that sewage and drainage pipes could also serve the same purpose in Ukraine’s cities.

“In urban conglomerations, the wastewater system becomes another battlefield,” he said.

Largely built when eastern Ukraine was one of the industrial heartlands of the Soviet Union, these networks of pipelines are no secret to military planners in Kyiv and Moscow.

“Everyone knows how these pipelines were built in Soviet times,” Nizhnikau said. “So you have the map, and the Russians have the map.”

Cover image: SPOTLIGHT © FRANCE 24
10:00

Aliyev said that Ukrainian forces had initially tried to wait for Russian soldiers to surface from the tunnels in a grim game of whack-a-mole rather than take the fight underground.

“For a very long time they were actually making fun of Russians using pipelines, saying that it is so dangerous, so ineffective, and it never works,” he said.

But the Russian victories in Avdiivka and Kursk forced Kyiv to reconsider. In September 2025, Russian independent investigative media outlet iStories hammered the point home further, revealing how Moscow was stockpiling ammunition and supplies to use the gas pipeline in the Kupiansk region for a larger-scale offensive.
Out of sight

Kingston-Cox said that the new underground front gave both sides ways to launch attacks and counter-attacks at a time where the mass proliferation of drones made above-ground assaults fraught.

“On open ground, a group can obviously be spotted well before it reaches its objective,” he said. “And we've seen countless cases where this has been the case with ... reconnaissance drones and also attack drones."

Nizhnikau said that the constant threat of drones for tens of kilometres on either side of the front made even the narrow, potentially gas-choked tunnels a more compelling prospect.

“It's more predictable for people. I understand it's really horrible, but then, it’s better than being killed by a drone,” he said. “At least a foot soldier knows that his enemy is just ahead of him in the tunnel – and there is nothing coming from the skies when you don’t expect it.”

‘Not an isolated incident’: Russian drones stalk Ukraine’s civilians in ‘human safaris’

While potentially perilous, Gressel stressed that the tunnels afforded soldiers rare protection from the drones that had become responsible for the bulk of the human casualties of the four-year war.

“Radio-controlled drones lose their signal at the entrance, and for fiber-optic drones the cable often snags in corners,” he said. “Nets, small wire or fishing lines can be spun around the entrance to prematurely detonate a drone.”

But while the saturation of reconnaissance and attack drones was driving both sides to invest more into the fight for the tunnels criss-crossing Ukraine, Nizhnikau stressed that these tactics should be understood as “a support measure” to the broader fight.

Aliyez agreed that this kind of tunnel warfare could not be replicated across the whole front.

“In a lot of places along the front line, there's just no such infrastructure to use in the first place,” he said.

The claustrophobic nature of these pipelines also makes it near impossible to use them to launch larger-scale offensives.

“A narrow pipe, for example, can deliver infantry past an obstacle – but then it would also have very limited capacity to support a larger force under pressure,” Kingston-Cox said. “If the defender is watching the opening and people are coming out a few at a time, this could become extremely vulnerable."

Despite its limitations, he said, these high-risk tactics could be used to help “break local deadlocks”.

And until now, these disused pipelines have largely been used by Russian forces to push deeper into Ukraine. Through operations such as Veles, the Ukrainians are showing that they’re ready to take the fight to Moscow on any battlefield.

This article has been adapted from the original in French.

Star Wars: Has Russia's war with Ukraine gone intergalactic?

Russian made an unprecedented combative move this month as one of its military satellites, the Cosmos-2612, encroached upon the orbit of Ukrainian commercial satellite, Iceye-X36, in behaviour deemed "threatening" by the US State Department. Norbert Pouzin, an orbital analyst at French space tech firm, Aldoria, described the mercenary manoeuvre as the first of its kind.


Issued on: 30/10/2026 
The FRANCE 24 Observers/Quang Pham

Between October 15 and 18, 2026, the Russian satellite Cosmos-2612 positioned itself at a short distance from the commercial satellite Iceye-X36. The number "59103" is the identifier assigned to Iceye-X36 by the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). © KeepTrack.space


Has space become a new frontier in Russia's war with Ukraine?

Russian military satellite Cosmos-2612 carried out a manoeuvre between October 15 and 18 that brought it “dangerously close” to Ukrainian commercial satellite, Iceye-X36. The move was described by US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security as "threatening".

Operated by Finnish company Iceye, Iceye-X36 is a Finnish-American civilian satellite equipped with Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) to provide satellite images to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The US State Department said Russia's tactic was consistent with “in-orbit military operations”.

Analysts specialising in space surveillance have been following Cosmos-2612 since its launch in April.

"Cosmos-2612 was one of six satellites launched in total. It was immediately apparent that this wasn't a classic deployment. As soon as they took off, the satellites started changing orbit to pursue Iceye satellites,” said Norbert Pouzin, an orbital analyst at Aldoria, a French space surveillance firm.

Cosmos-2612 took off on April 6, 2026 alongside Cosmos-2609, Cosmos-2610, Cosmos-2611, Cosmos-2613 and Cosmos-2614. KeepTrack, a site specialising in satellite navigation, enables viewers to track their paths.

This map shows the orbit carried out by Cosmos-2612 (identified by its Norad number 68762 in the screengrab) and other Cosmos satellites launched at the same time. © KeepTrack.space

Orbit re-routing – as has been the case of the Cosmos satellites – is a move that consumes a lot of fuel. It’s also the first step in approaching another satellite, Pouzin explains:

"If two satellites are travelling in the same orbit, then they don’t need as much fuel to approach one another. Changing directions in space uses a lot of fuel. But once in the same orbit as another satellite, you’ve already executed the most costly move fuel-wise, if you then want to carry out an approach.”
From a kilometre to within just a few hundred metres

As the imaging data via site, Satellite Tracker, corroborates, Cosmos-2612 diverted from its original position – around 400-500 km from Iceye-X36 – to get closer to the Finnish-American satellite.

"On October 15, Cosmos-2612 was within 5 kilometres of Iceye-X36. Its position continued to narrow in on the satellite on October 16 and 17, before finally getting to within a few hundred metres and a kilometre of Iceye-X36 ,” Pouzin said.

This chat shows the Cosmos-2612’s altitude (68762, shown in red) and Iceye-X36 (59103, shown in blue). You can see that Cosmos-2612 changed its position, moving to an altitude similar to Iceye-X36. © Satellite Tracker

Satellite imaging company Vantor published a photo of the two satellites on October 22, depicting their orbits withing just 1.02 kilometres of one another.
This photo of COSMOS-2612 and ICEYE-X36 was taken on October 17, 2026. Source: Vantor.

Data from KeepTrack also revealed that Cosmos-2612 and Iceye-X36 later embarked on the same orbit, meaning the Russian satellite was “following” the Finnish-American satellite.

Above is a map showing the positions of Cosmos-2612 (number Norad 68762 ) and Iceye-X36 (number Norad 59103). Below is a 3D view of a trajectory of the two satellites © KeepTrack.space

A bold move

So why did Cosmos-2612 carry out this “threatening” manoeuvre?

Given the lack of debris, it doesn’t appear that Iceye-X36 was the target of a “kinetic” attack – that is, a physical strike involving a collision or the launch of a projectile. But according to Pouzin, the manoeuvre by Cosmos-2612 could be interpreted as a form of exerting pressure on Ukraine, as it is the direct recipient of the data gathered by the Iceye satellite:


"SAR satellites have unique observation plans [Editor’s note: a schedule that coordinates how radar satellites can scan specific parts of the planet.] If an operator knows about these, then he could – for a short time – disrupt the satellite’s mission, potentially causing repercussions for ground-based or maritime operations, for example."

Cosmos-2612’s move seemed to shock Western commentators, he added:


"While Russia regularly launches military satellites in the same orbital planes as classified American military satellites; carrying out this particular kind of approach on a commercial satellite while in a low orbit is something new. Furthermore it seemed to be non-cooperative in nature: we are dealing with two actors who are not on the same side and these are satellites not operated by the same entity."

The initiative also revealed something about Russia’s capabilities, Pouzin concluded:


"The move demonstrated a certain agility by the Russian operator, a skilled knowledge of the space domain, and a very high level of mastery in this type of navigation.”