On May 30, the Russians launched a new radar surveillance satellite into orbit called the Kondor FKA. According to Sputnik, citing an unnamed source, the new satellite will be used for reconnaissance of Ukrainian military installations. “It will pass over Ukraine on average twice a day and is capable of detecting military objects in radar range with a resolution of one meter,” an unnamed source said. He added that “regardless of the time of day or weather, the satellite will make it possible to observe, for example, the concentration of enemy troops, the movement of equipment or the construction of new fortifications.”
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, in comments reported by TASS on June 4, argued that this new satellite will help change the course of the war. “It can see through clouds, it can see through rain,” he said.” It can see through everything. High resolution radar, and they are seeing everything right now.”
“You can’t hide anything from the Russians anymore,” Ritter stressed. “And it’s going to have a fundamental shift in how this [Ukrainian] conflict goes because all that stuff that’s been brought—can’t hide it,” he continued, referring to Western weapons coming into Ukraine. He goes so far as to state that, as a result, in his opinion the conflict would become “unsustainable for the Ukrainian sometime by the end of summer, early fall.”
