Russia’s early warning satellite constellation is apparently no longer functioning
The satellites in Russia’s constellation for giving its military early warning of missile attacks, dubbed EKS, have been one-by-one failing in recent years, and it now appears the last one has now experienced a malfunction as well.
After the launch of the 6th Tundra satellite in 2022, the Russian military seemingly gave up on the effort to deploy the EKS early warning constellation or, possibly, the industry was simply unable to build new satellites due to technical problems associated with the Western sanctions and/or financial problems. No fresh satellites were launched into the network in the following three years, while, according to an analyst of the Russian strategic nuclear forces Pavel Podvig, the orbital tracking indicated that from March 2025 to December of the same year, the number of operational Tundra satellites fell from three to just one, possibly as a result of in-orbit failures.
…As of December 2025, Kosmos-2552 (EKS-5) was the only satellite within the EKS system which did not show a clear sign of failure, according to Podvig, but the spacecraft did miss a maneuver expected in November 2025, based on the usual pattern of its detectable orbit adjustments.
None of this is a surprise. Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has not only isolated the country, it has crippled it in numerous ways, both financially and technologically. It no longer has access to many western high tech components it had relied on, and the loss of all its international launch customers has left its rocket industry devoid of hard currency.
Thus, when Russia makes any grandiose claims about its future space plans, it is wise to harbor great doubts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The satellites in Russia’s constellation for giving its military early warning of missile attacks, dubbed EKS, have been one-by-one failing in recent years, and it now appears the last one has now experienced a malfunction as well.
After the launch of the 6th Tundra satellite in 2022, the Russian military seemingly gave up on the effort to deploy the EKS early warning constellation or, possibly, the industry was simply unable to build new satellites due to technical problems associated with the Western sanctions and/or financial problems. No fresh satellites were launched into the network in the following three years, while, according to an analyst of the Russian strategic nuclear forces Pavel Podvig, the orbital tracking indicated that from March 2025 to December of the same year, the number of operational Tundra satellites fell from three to just one, possibly as a result of in-orbit failures.
…As of December 2025, Kosmos-2552 (EKS-5) was the only satellite within the EKS system which did not show a clear sign of failure, according to Podvig, but the spacecraft did miss a maneuver expected in November 2025, based on the usual pattern of its detectable orbit adjustments.
None of this is a surprise. Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has not only isolated the country, it has crippled it in numerous ways, both financially and technologically. It no longer has access to many western high tech components it had relied on, and the loss of all its international launch customers has left its rocket industry devoid of hard currency.
Thus, when Russia makes any grandiose claims about its future space plans, it is wise to harbor great doubts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
If true, this is not happy news for anyone. In fact the very last thing that you want is a nuclear armed adversary that is no longer able to effectively discern reality and to make decisions based on verifiable information.
If your are a self-loathing European leader who despises his or her own country / culture / civilization* (ah, but I am repeating myself), then you might *welcome* a Russian Launch on Warning system that might trigger a nuclear war on a whim, but no sane person would. (Imagine back in 1962 if John F. Kennedy had believed that his country was guilty of terrible crimes against humanity, was founded in evil, *and needed to be punished*. How, then, might he have responded to the the Soviet threat in Cuba?)
*And thus the official French consternation at the death of Brigitte Bardot.
Let us hope, instead, that something like a breakthrough in peace negotiations in Ukraine are at hand, and it will be possible to nudge Russia back toward some kind of workable integration into the community of nations. As, by the way, would seem to be Mr. Trump’s ultimate objective. Or, like the European Union elites, would we rather be dealing with an adversary which is both blind and paranoid?
From my reading of Russian history, it seems evident that a system warning of external attacks upon it might not be of the highest criticality.
GPS satellites have a nuclear detection package. It would not surprise me if Russian Glonass and Chinese Beidou nav sats have the same.
Milt, Russia was deliberately pushed out of integration with Europe by neo cons running US foreign policy. One of the more immense failures of such.
I don’t think the end, if such it proves, of Russia’s strategic early warning capability is going to matter very much. The Russian strategic arsenal it served seems likely to be in roughly comparably decrepit shape. The Soviet-era legacy missile fleet – both in land silos and in submarines, has been quietly rotting for 35 years now. No one – probably including the Russians themselves – has any real idea of how much, if any, of it would still work if called upon.
And the Russians have proven repeatedly incapable of building new missiles to take the places of their rusty legacy rockets.
Their strategic bomber fleet – the third leg of the notional Russian triad – is also dwindling, including some massive recent losses inflicted by Ukraine. Those can be expected to continue.
Milt,
Russia had an opportunity to achieve “some kind of workable integration into the community of nations” after the fall of the Soviet Union. It didn’t take it. Instead, it did what it has always done – produced another czar and set about attempting to restore its half-vanished empire.
Russia doesn’t need another “chance” it won’t take to straighten up and fly right, it needs to complete the process of dying and disappearing that it has been well into for decades and which its latest – and likely last – czar has unwisely accelerated.
We should not be rooting for any phony “peace” Pres. Trump is pursuing in vain hopes of a Nobel Prize. We should be helping Ukraine complete the military destruction of Russia with all deliberate speed, assist long-restive non-Russian-majority provinces to detach from the rump of European Russia and then allow the defanged and demographically terminal husk of Russia to die and crumble to dust.
If any of Russia’s former slave populations feels the need to do a bit of compensatory sacking and pillaging by way of hurrying this process to an earlier conclusion, we, and the rest of the world, should stand aside and let rough justice be done. As a nation, Russia has lived an ugly life. It richly deserves to die an ugly death.
Mike Borgelt,
The GPS constellation has nuclear explosion detection payloads aboard each sat. These are there to detect “covert” above-ground nuclear weapons testing as well as to locate any nuclear explosions that might occur pursuant to a notional regional nuclear war, such as between India and Pakistan. These payloads are not capable of detecting or tracking the launch signatures of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.
US neo-cons – pretty much an extinct species at this point – had things to answer for but the isolation and belligerence of Russia are not among them. Those, the Russians managed nicely on their own – as they have always done.
There is a tendency by pretty much the entire left, and also by certain elements of the right, to see the hand of Washington DC in everything bad that occurs in the world. Putting aside the very different notions these groups have as to what constitutes “bad,” the notion of US omnipotence assigns DC a degree of agency far beyond what it actually possesses. There are bad guys everywhere. Not a few of them are in charge of entire nation-states. None are noteworthy for taking orders from DC.
It would, I suppose, be oddly comforting to think that the world is under the thumb of the US to such a degree that DC is the author – overtly or covertly – of pretty much everything of consequence that occurs, but it is not. The world, as a whole, is a terrifically messy place that no one is in control of. That, and not the notional scheming of vanished “neo-cons,” is what everyone should worry about.
There was a recent fun feel-good fiction book by Annie Jackobson (I think) called ‘Nuclear War’ where Russia’s crappy early warning system was not all that precise, and that led to some people doing some things.
I guess if WWIII breaks out, maybe we can go for that decapitation strike and actually win. I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.
The basis of the satellites not working seems to be they haven’t made orbital correction maneuvers. That assumption might not be valid, depending on the details.
John,
Wasn’t previously aware of the Jacobsen book, though I was aware of some of her earlier work. That work was all about matters that are entirely US-centric. I would assume she has done her usual homework on the US side of a notional nuclear exchange with the Russians, but anything about the Russian side of things would be guesswork, probably filtered through her usual Pentagon-centric sources. It is in the interest of such people to paint as scary a picture of Russian strategic weapons capability as possible – their paychecks depend upon portraying the Russians as ten feet tall and covered with rank hair. Ditto the PRC for that matter. There is a nice confluence of interests here with Jacobsen, too, in that her own book sales depend, to some extent, on peddling exactly the same impression of Russia.
The same people who are still trying to scare us about Russia’s “vast” nuclear arsenal are, in most cases, the same ones who figured Ukraine was going to be a walk-over for the Russkies in 2022. 2014 was a walk-over, but the Ukes had had eight years to get ready for 2.0 and they weren’t wasting their time. So to me, it was pretty much “duh” that 2.0 was going to look a lot more like the Winter War with Finland in ’39 than like Crimea and the Donbass in 2014 but, for some reason, I was very much in the minority anent that view. In the event, the Ukes have done rather better than the Finns did back in the day, though, admittedly, against a much less formidable opponent.
Captured Russian tanks with applique “armor” were found, by the Ukrainians, to mostly have the explosives in same replaced by blocks of wood. Somewhere between original manufacture and the equipment falling into Ukrainian hands, Russians had stolen the explosives, probably to sell on the black market. Nuclear weapons also contain blocks of conventional explosives. Five will get you ten that a lot of present-day Russian nukes are full of pine or spruce too.
If Vlad Putin doesn’t know this to be the case for certain, he probably at least suspects it to be so. That is likely foremost among the reasons that Russian nukes have been used only rhetorically by Putin’s regime – an empty threat repeatedly trotted out when some “red line” is declared and then quietly forgotten when said red line is crossed. These episodes have happened repeatedly since Feb. of ’22.
The Russians aren’t going to pull any nuclear triggers because they either know for a fact or strongly suspect that, should they do so, nothing much will happen. But the US would certainly pick up on the attempt. That, in turn, would likely trigger a wave of NATO spec ops troops sent to every Russian missile field, sub base and nuclear weapons storage depot in Russia to promptly deprive Russia of any opportunity to try such a thing again.
Absent its nukes, of course, Russia is basically an old folks home with a few rusty AK-47s standing in the corners of the rooms. Let that be confirmed and the end of the Russian empire, nation, population, culture and language would almost certainly follow in very short order. Russia is surrounded by people it oppressed for centuries and its outer present-day marches are inhabited by still more whom it is still oppressing. Given an opportunity to get some of their own back, I would expect these folks to take it. And none of them are hobbled by any Western notions about rules of war.
Where a nuclear war started by an enemy nation is concerned, we still have to worry about the PRC. But not about the Russians.
Right now, we have the opportunity to end Russia permanently if we would only take it by backing the Ukrainians to the hilt and following through when they have rendered Russia hors de combat. Trump will be remembered as a rival to Obama when it comes to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory should he fail to capitalize on this chance.
So when do you think China will be building that Bering Strait Bridge?
“Asian coal and lignite, cheap. You buy, we relocate Trudeau and his ilk to Siberia.”
DEAL!
Dick,
You describe present day Russia as a sort of vast Potemkin Village, and if this is true, then, as you say, “Right now, we have the opportunity to end Russia permanently if we would only take it by backing the Ukrainians to the hilt and following through when they have rendered Russia hors de combat. Trump will be remembered as a rival to Obama when it comes to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory should he fail to capitalize on this chance.”
I have to admit that I — and probably most other people — have not looked at things in quite this fashion, and have instead perceived Russia as far more powerful and tenacious adversary that is practicing “restraint” in its attempt to subjugate Ukraine. In a similar fashion, a number of European leaders have been promoting a narrative about a revanchist Russia whose army — having achieved “peace in our time” and “its last territorial demand” in Ukraine — will soon enough be rolling across Poland and then surging into the Balkan states.
But which vision of Russia is true? The idea that Russia is simply doing “the best that it can” in a sort of stalemated forever war in Ukraine that it is not actually capable of winning, let alone expanding into Eastern Europe, does seem to comport with your perspective, and you may be correct about all of this. But what does the Pentagon — not to mention that Irish fellow in the White House — think, and what comes out of war gaming exercises based on your assessment of their capabilities? And, remembering our less than excellent adventure in Iraq, even should we succeed in dismembering Russia, who takes over and runs the place after Putin is gone?
As for the dismal state of life in Russia today, there is an interesting review essay in the November-December issue of Foreign Affairs by
Joshua Yaffa that adds credence to your dour view of things. The problem — as currently in Iran and in Venezuela — is that it is far easier to make accommodations with a bad system than to say “enough is enough” and rise up to change it. Even with the added pressure of being in unsuccessful wars. And, if anyone thinks that the Russians are derelict in not replacing Mr. Putin, consider the voters in Blue districts all across America. Whether it’s Mayor Mamdani, Tim “The Grifter” Walz, or Gavin Newsom, *they can’t get enough* of these home grown autocrats and the Marxist Kool-Aid that they dispense. Mr. Mamdani — should he not go on to higher office — is likely to remain in power even longer than Putin himself.
As the son of a professional soldier, I am not quick to spend other people’s lives. The discussion seems more centered on exploiting Russian economic and political weakness than direct conflict. And facing down the Russians on home ground is not appetizing. I have a passing awareness of pre-Soviet Russian history, but current events may warrant a closer look. There are probably lessons for the 21st Century in the Nineteenth.
Do we have any evidence that they ever even worked?
They might have been active and functioning but that doesn’t mean they actually worked.
The fact that Russia didn’t seem eager to ever replace its Soviet era systems tends to indicate that the new system might not have been everything they claimed it was.
Milt,
My description of Russia is accurate. Russia is not exercising “restraint” of any kind anent Ukraine. It is doing its level best to take the entire country, but has found itself in pretty much a stalemate for the last three years after suffering serious reverses in the Kharkiv region in 2022. Said stalemate, by the way, also includes several instances of Ukrainians invading Russian territory and making merry for a time before withdrawing after having faked the Russians offsides.
The only “restraint” is internal. Russia has been very reluctant to call up reservists for fear of internal political consequences. It has tried to rely as much as it can on jailbirds, foreign mercenaries and levies from areas of Russia where ethnic Russians are a minority. As profligate as Russia has been with the manpower it has managed to scrape up – it loses 1,000 troops on a good day – it has suffered even worse loses in materiel. It is rapidly running out of tanks and other armored vehicles and its strategic air fleet has taken frightful losses in recent months as well. Russia can replace none of this.
Now, of course, Ukraine is well into a program of de-industrializing Russia with high explosives delivered by unmanned cruise missiles and drones. Ukraine has also recently begun doing what the Russians have been doing to it since the start of the war – targeting civilian infrastructure such as power plants. Part of Putin’s early case for the war was that it was far away and would not affect the average Russian in the street. That, needless to say, is no longer even remotely the case. Fuel shortages due to refinery bombings are now endemic and more and more Russians are discovering the joys of freezing in the dark as their power and steam heat are knocked out.
The notion that Russia wants to add the scalps of Poland, the Baltic nations and other former Warsaw Pact nations to its notionally recovered empire is entirely correct. Just taking Ukraine, even in toto, would not provide Russia with borders it would regard as defensible. It wants to get its old Soviet-era borders back.
Given its feeble and rapidly worsening condition, such an idea is, of course, quite daft, but it’s also very Russian. The recent spate of Russian drone, manned aircraft and even on-the-ground incursions into Poland, Romania, the Baltic states and even Turkey clearly indicate Russian intent. That Russia has no real capability to actualize its now-ludicrous ambitions hasn’t affected the thinking in Moscow – if such it can be called – one iota. The Russians are increasingly nutty, but they are also very sincere.
The only cure for Russian aggression is the death of Russia. Given its thoroughly terminal demographics, Russia was on course to effectively disappear well before century’s end in any case. By launching its war on Ukraine, Russia is now accelerating its march to the graveyard. We should be doing everything possible to assist that process.
Who takes over after Putin is gone? That seems a matter of no particular importance. If the Ukrainians succeed in grinding Russia into military impotence over the next year or so, what is now Russia will shatter. The nations of the Caucasus that did not already bug out after the Soviet crack-up will do so as will most of Siberia. Whichever second-string autocrat manages to take over from Putin will have his hands full keeping all of his second-string peers from defenestrating him and taking over in their own turns. Post-Putin Russia – what remains of it – will be a mess and might very quickly succumb to the revenge of the formerly oppressed. That, at least, is my preferred outcome.
Blair Ivey,
I’m not big on spending other people’s lives either. But those other people are already spending their lives as they were given no choice. I, for one, would like to see that those sacrifices achieve something decisive – like the death of Russia.
The Ukrainians have already faced down Russians on their home ground and did pretty well at it. I don’t think they would be at all reluctant to do so some more if that’s what it would take to put Russia down for good. But the Ukes are doing pretty well with their robot equivalent of the 8th Air Force and making no sacrifices in the process.
The only reason I can see for American troops ever setting foot on Russian soil would be to secure and remove its nuke stockpile after Russia bleeds out in Ukraine.
pzatchok,
There’s all sorts of evidence that Russian nukes – and missiles – used to work. What is lacking is any significant contemporary evidence that they still work. All of Russia’s aging heavy ICBMs were made in Ukraine back in the day. Russian attempts to create completely Russified equivalents have failed quite spectacularly to-date – e.g., Sarmat.
Seeing our military wants to kill the A-10 and replace it with…a crop-duster(must not curse….must not curse):
https://www.twz.com/air/air-forces-crop-duster-converted-into-attack-plane-crash-lands-in-field
–then Trump needs to give A-10s to Ukraine, a theater they were made to operate in.
Or the Army, so they can….like….not have to rely on Delta pilots for combat air support.
The Ukrainians were their SEC hoss’ players in the Olympics….and more than a few knew all about Soviet (now Russian) tech secrets.
While this may be part of the rot of space competency, it may be an inside job. This donnybrook has been a wealth of intelligence.
If only all those nukes got shipped to the USA for our reactors… Putin’s days would be numbered.
“Or the Army, so they can….like….not have to rely on Delta pilots for combat air support.”
I think it’s great that the people driving my bus, are also kicking butt. There is something very American, about that. And if a luggage drop is needed over dometic insurgents, the people up front can handle it.
Jeff Wright,
Neither the A-10 nor the “crop duster” will have any consequential future as ground attack aircraft. The future is drones and the Ukes are already showing the way, not the USAF. The A-10 would be of decidedly limited use to Ukraine at this point in the war anyway. The A-10 is an armored vehicle killer. The Russians are rapidly running out of armored vehicles because the Ukes have long since figured out other ways to kill them quite effectively without risking manned aircraft in the process.
Actual A 10’s would make a difference in that they can be used in a rapid response way that drones just can not do.
Now instead of getting rid of them I would like to see them rearmed. Convert the 30mm Gau 8/A to a 20mm Vulcan.
Thus the machine can carry more ammo in the same space. Like the military went from 7.62 to 5.56 in rifles. More ammo same weight.
Smaller lighter anti armor missiles on multiple racks/hard points. 50BMG gun pods. Drone drop pods.