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Thursday, November 20, 2014

Russian Top-Secret Satellite Killer Haunts US, NATO Military


It is a tale that could have come from the cold war. A mysterious object launched by the Russian military is being tracked by western space agencies, stoking fears over the revival of a defunct Kremlin project to destroy satellites.

File photo of a Russian booster rocket at a launching pad of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
For the past few weeks, amateur astronomers and satellite-trackers in Russia and the west have followed the unusual manoeuvres of Object 2014-28E, watching it guide itself towards other Russian space objects. The pattern appeared to culminate last weekend in a rendezvous with the remains of the rocket stage that launched it.

The object had originally been classed as space debris, propelled into orbit as part of a Russian rocket launch in May to add three Rodnik communications satellites to an existing military constellation. The US military is now tracking it under the Norad designation 39765.

Its purpose is unknown, and could be civilian: a project to hoover up space junk, for example. Or a vehicle to repair or refuel existing satellites. But interest has been piqued because Russia did not declare its launch—and by the object's peculiar, and very active, precision movements across the skies.


Russia officially mothballed its anti-satellite weaponry programme—Istrebitel Sputnikov or satellite killer— after the fall of the iron curtain, though its expertise has not entirely disappeared. Indeed, military officials have publicly stated in the past that they would restart research in the event of a deterioration in relations with the US over anti-missile defence treaties. In 2010, Oleg Ostapenko, commander of Russia's space forces, and now head of its space agency, said Russia was again developing "inspection" and "strike" satellites.

Moscow's ministry of defence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Whatever it is, [Object 2014-28E] looks experimental," said Patricia Lewis, research director at think-tank Chatham House and an expert in space security. "It could have a number of functions, some civilian and some military. One possibility is for some kind of grabber bar. Another would be kinetic pellets which shoot out at another satellite. Or possibly there could be a satellite-to-satellite cyber attack or jamming."


In a week when the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft landed a probe on a comet, the peregrinations of 2014-28E could seem insignificant, but they highlight an area of growing—if so far little publicised—concern for defence strategists: the weaponisation of space.

Having the ability to destroy or degrade an opponent's satellite communications has been regarded as a powerful military capability since the space race began but, after the collapse of the iron curtain, many of the secret research projects Soviet and US engineers were working on were quietly shelved. In the past few years, however, interest in space weapons has revived.

"It would be odd if space were to remain the one area that [militaries] don't get their hands on," says Ms Lewis. Cyber attacks on satellites are already a reality, she points out: last week, hackers linked to the Chinese government infiltrated US federal weather satellites.


Russia has in the past been at the forefront of efforts to try to secure an international treaty to prevent weapons being deployed in space, but its efforts have fallen on stony ground.

Amid rapid advances by other foreign powers, and the recent deterioration in relations between Moscow and the west, plans to revive the IS programme would make strategic sense, said one Russian military expert.

As far back as 2007, the Chinese showed they had the ability to shoot down satellites with rockets and in 2008 the US demonstrated it had the same capability.

More recently, in May this year, a Chinese satellite known as Shijian 15 began to exhibit unusual propulsion capabilities and eventually intercepted another Chinese satellite, Shijian 7.

"The experiment was linked to the possible use of a remote capture arm and close proximity operations," said Max White, a member of the Kettering group of astronomers, which made a name for itself in the 1960s by pinpointing the location of Soviet spy satellite launches. "Both can have peaceful as well as military nuances, with the former for refuelling in space, and the latter for disabling an active payload belonging to a foreign nation, potentially without causing a debris cloud.

"Whether the Russians feel they need to demonstrate such capability is a matter for debate," Mr White added. He, too, has been following the activities of object 2014-28E.

n a signal of international sensitivities over the prospect of anti-satellite technologies being rapidly developed, a Chinese missile test this year drew an unusually fiery response from the Pentagon. US authorities said they had "high confidence" that a July launch was a test for a ground-based weapon to strike a satellite, accusing the Chinese of "destabilising actions". China's test was later also condemned by the EU.
(Written by Sam Jones for the Financial Times)


Pakistan Cyber Force

NATO Scrambles Jets 400 times in 2014 as Russian Air Activity Jumps

AMARI Estonia/LONDON (Reuters) - NATO warplanes have had to scramble 400 times this year in response to an increase in Russian air activity around Europe not seen since the Cold War, the alliance's chief said on Thursday.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members have sought to fill gaps in the alliance's land, air and sea defences since Russia annexed Crimea and backed a secessionist movement in the eastern part of Ukraine.

Speaking to U.S., German and Estonian troops at a newly expanded and renovated air base in western Estonia, which once housed a Soviet military installation, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the problem was not just where the Russians are flying but that they are not turning on their transponders or communicating.

He said the flights - which have risen 50 percent over the last year - posed a risk to commercial air traffic.

"This pattern is risky and unjustified, so NATO remains vigilant. We are here and we are ready to defend all our allies against any threats,” Stoltenberg said in a speech after meeting Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas.

"It is a pattern which we have not seen for many years and it is a pattern that reminds us of the way they conducted these kind of military air activities back in the time of the Cold War."

Vice Admiral Peter Hudson, commander of NATO's Allied Maritime Command, said Russia was using its military forces in a "much more assertive manner", which included more Russian naval activity in the Baltic region.

"From a NATO perspective, we are going about our legitimate business in international waters working with our allies. They are occasionally interfering, occasionally operating as a nuisance," Hudson told Reuters in London.

"Safety has not been breached, but it is just a style of behaviour which we have not seen for 25 years, since the end of the Cold War," he said.

Stoltenberg said most of the Russian flights were close to NATO air space, with "very limited numbers of violations".

NATO allies remain concerned that France could still decide to sell an advanced military helicopter carrier to Russia, Stoltenberg said, but added that this was not a decision that NATO had any authority over.
(Yahoo News)
Pakistan Cyber Force

Sunday, November 16, 2014

US Navy Flees In Terror as Russian Navy Warships rush towards Australia

A Naval Surface Forces (NSF) updated report to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) circulating in the Kremlin today on the “accelerated deployment” of the Pacific Fleet guided missile cruiser Varyag and destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov (along with their support ships) to international waters off the coast of Australia is confirming that that the Australian Navy has sent another of their warships to the region.

Joining the Australian Navy warships HMAS Parramatta and HMAS Stuart that had been ordered to “crash sail to meet the Russian fleet, this report continues, is the replenishment vessel HMAS Sirius.

As we had previously reported on in our 12 November report Russian Navy Rushes To Australia Over Putin Assassination Fears, the necessitating of these Russian warships deploying to Australia was due to a Federal Security Forces (FSB) report detailing a “plot” by the Obama regime to attack President Putin’s plane during his attendance of this weekends G-20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia.

This NSF report further notes that the deviation from their mission of testing their fleets range capability, in case they have to do climate change research in the Antarctic, to protecting President Putin was, also, publically confirmed by the Russian Embassy in Australia earlier today. 

Heightening the concerns of FSB intelligence analysts, the MoD previously reported, is that President Putin’s plane will be transversing some of the same areas as Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 did this past March which resulted in that aircrafts mysterious capture” and disappearance at the hands of the US Navy operating from their highly-secretive Indian Ocean base located on the Diego Garcia atoll.

Also to be noted, the FSB has warned, is the still unexplained shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine this past July, which many intelligence experts note may have been an attempt to assassinate President Putin as his planes path intersected MH-17, and due to the outward appearance similarity of these two aircraft caused the two Ukrainian Air Force fighter jets to mistakenly shoot MH-17 down, a fact which newly discovered radar tapes confirm.

Most astounding to be mentioned in this NSF report, however, is its reporting that the Obama regime has ordered all US Navy warships in the Australian region not to approach, or in any way provoke, these Russian ships over their fears of another “USS Donald Cook incident” occurring.

USS Donald Cook is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer in the US Navy and is considered as one of, if not the most, powerful warships in America’s arsenal, but which in the “incident” being referred to in this NSF report was completely disabled by Russian forces in the Black Sea this past April.

And as reported by the Russia & India Report News Service about this “incident” we can further, in part, read:
“The Su-24 Russian tactical bomber which approached the Donald Cook carried no bombs or missiles but a container with the Khibiny radio-electronic military system. Having approached the destroyer, Khibiny was used to switch off the American destroyer’s radar, battle control circuits and data exchange systems. In other words, it turned off the whole Aegis by remote control. After this, the Su-24 simulated a missile attack at the “blind and deaf” ship, and repeated the manoeuvre 12 times. When the Russian fighter left, the Donald Cook rushed to a Romanian port and never approached Russian waters again.”

So gravely demoralizing was this “incident” to the US Navy, the US State Department confirmed in their protest to Russia, 27 sailors from the USS Donald Cook requested to be relieved from active service after their warships total disablement by the technologically superior Russian forces. (After all, who wants to be sitting ducks?)

With the Pacific Fleet’s guided missile cruiser Varyag sent to protect President Putin being equipped with [at least] three new and highly secretive Altius unmanned air vehicles (UAV) that are all equipped with both the Khibiny and Borisoglebsk-2 electronic warfare systems, this report notes, it is no wonder that the US Navy has “fled in fear” from encountering this fleet.

As to if President Putin himself is in fear of the Obama regimes plot to assassinate him this report doesn’t mention.  But judging by his statement today declaring that the Russian economy won’t be dominated by America’s “Dollar Dictatorship”, and by his packing Russian vaults with another whopping 55 tonnes of gold last quarter to battle the West’s fiat currencies, his plan for surviving this growing economic war shows no signs of abating.
(WhatDoesItMean.com)
Pakistan Cyber Force