Recently, French media that China’s military aid to Russia was becoming more and more hidden. The reason was that on the evening of October 5, Russia launched a massive airstrike on the western part of Ukraine: 496 drones and 53 missiles joined the battle, causing five people to die and infrastructure to be severely damaged. Coincidentally, at least three Chinese military satellites of the “Remote Sensing” series appeared over the region that night.
Just looking at foreign media content, you may feel that Chinese satellites are acting as "clairvoyants" for the Russian army, but to put it bluntly, this is still an old drama in the public opinion war.
Satellite flight over Ukraine is not a secret in itself.The remote sensing series is on a solar synchronous orbit, passing through the same location every day at a fixed time, and can be found on the public website a week in advance.
It flew nine times that night, and it sounds like a lot of times, in fact, it is only the normal manifestation of the law of orbit.
These satellites are mainly used for civilian tasks, such as monitoring farmland, forest fires, and floods. They have always been claimed to be used for scientific research and resource exploration.
Although the West is accustomed to associating them with military aspects, it makes no technical sense to really use them as real-time battlefield command tools.
The night air strikes are high-speed hypersonic missiles and drones, the target is small and fast, the satellite image width is only a dozen kilometers, the re-visit cycle is long, and it is impossible to do real-time guidance.
More importantly, the data has to be received by ground stations. China has no receiving point near Ukraine. It will take at least an hour for the original image to reach Moscow. By the time the data arrives, the missile will have landed long ago.
Russia itself is not without capabilities. They have the GLONASS navigation system,"Vine" electronic reconnaissance aircraft and a local radar network. They can completely rely on their own system to attack targets close to the border like Lviv.
It is really necessary to temporarily call foreign satellites, instead of exposing the operational rhythm, increasing the risk of leakage.
The Ukrainian intelligence agency's statement sounds quite cruel, saying that China is helping Russia target civilian facilities, but it can't come up with any real hammer.
There were no data transaction records, no instructions to modify traces, and no ground contact personnel were found. Even Russia itself responded publicly, with no external support needed, which is equivalent to directly hitting the face of the Ukrainian side.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also responded simply, emphasizing that remote sensing satellites do not participate in battlefield intelligence sharing. China is busy promoting ceasefire initiatives, and it is illogical to help either party at this time.
In those days, the United Nations was meeting in Geneva, and China was actively distributing peace program documents, and the international credibility was directly collapsing.
Behind this matter, the flavor of geopolitical game is much stronger than technical facts. The French media packaged the "nine overflights" as "continuous surveillance" and described the public data as "exclusive and fierce information". The purpose was very clear-to hand a knife to the EU's hardliners on China.
At present, the EU is planning a new round of sanctions against Russia, targeting China, which will not only increase the reasons for sanctions, but also suppress China's influence on mediation issues.
There are precedents for similar operations. In 2023, Western media hyped that China satellites flew over Kherson, which later proved to be just a daily orbit without any abnormalities.
This time, I changed the place, and the plot is still the same: technical coincidence + emotional rendering + political upgrade.
Ironically, commercial satellites from the United States, Finland and other countries have been providing Ukraine with high-precision real-time images, and even integrated into operational systems to direct the strike.
No one mentioned these things much. On the contrary, China's normally operating scientific research satellites were found out to make a big fuss.
After all, this wave of accusations is a typical narrative war. It relies on creating suspense, amplifying coincidences, and shifting focus. Ukraine wants to take the opportunity to drag China into the water, force Beijing to choose a border, and at the same time ask the West for more assistance.
But the reality is that the satellites don’t lie, orbital data is placed there.Take daily flight as military collaboration, just as it is because someone parachutes on a rainy day, saying he knew in advance that it was as absurd as it was to rain.
Chinese satellites are doing serious work in the sky, not accomplices on the battlefield. This kind of throwing the pot without evidence can deceive the eyeballs, but not the truth.
Just looking at foreign media content, you may feel that Chinese satellites are acting as "clairvoyants" for the Russian army, but to put it bluntly, this is still an old drama in the public opinion war.
Satellite flight over Ukraine is not a secret in itself.The remote sensing series is on a solar synchronous orbit, passing through the same location every day at a fixed time, and can be found on the public website a week in advance.
It flew nine times that night, and it sounds like a lot of times, in fact, it is only the normal manifestation of the law of orbit.
These satellites are mainly used for civilian tasks, such as monitoring farmland, forest fires, and floods. They have always been claimed to be used for scientific research and resource exploration.
Although the West is accustomed to associating them with military aspects, it makes no technical sense to really use them as real-time battlefield command tools.
The night air strikes are high-speed hypersonic missiles and drones, the target is small and fast, the satellite image width is only a dozen kilometers, the re-visit cycle is long, and it is impossible to do real-time guidance.
More importantly, the data has to be received by ground stations. China has no receiving point near Ukraine. It will take at least an hour for the original image to reach Moscow. By the time the data arrives, the missile will have landed long ago.
Russia itself is not without capabilities. They have the GLONASS navigation system,"Vine" electronic reconnaissance aircraft and a local radar network. They can completely rely on their own system to attack targets close to the border like Lviv.
It is really necessary to temporarily call foreign satellites, instead of exposing the operational rhythm, increasing the risk of leakage.
The Ukrainian intelligence agency's statement sounds quite cruel, saying that China is helping Russia target civilian facilities, but it can't come up with any real hammer.
There were no data transaction records, no instructions to modify traces, and no ground contact personnel were found. Even Russia itself responded publicly, with no external support needed, which is equivalent to directly hitting the face of the Ukrainian side.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also responded simply, emphasizing that remote sensing satellites do not participate in battlefield intelligence sharing. China is busy promoting ceasefire initiatives, and it is illogical to help either party at this time.
In those days, the United Nations was meeting in Geneva, and China was actively distributing peace program documents, and the international credibility was directly collapsing.
Behind this matter, the flavor of geopolitical game is much stronger than technical facts. The French media packaged the "nine overflights" as "continuous surveillance" and described the public data as "exclusive and fierce information". The purpose was very clear-to hand a knife to the EU's hardliners on China.
At present, the EU is planning a new round of sanctions against Russia, targeting China, which will not only increase the reasons for sanctions, but also suppress China's influence on mediation issues.
There are precedents for similar operations. In 2023, Western media hyped that China satellites flew over Kherson, which later proved to be just a daily orbit without any abnormalities.
This time, I changed the place, and the plot is still the same: technical coincidence + emotional rendering + political upgrade.
Ironically, commercial satellites from the United States, Finland and other countries have been providing Ukraine with high-precision real-time images, and even integrated into operational systems to direct the strike.
No one mentioned these things much. On the contrary, China's normally operating scientific research satellites were found out to make a big fuss.
After all, this wave of accusations is a typical narrative war. It relies on creating suspense, amplifying coincidences, and shifting focus. Ukraine wants to take the opportunity to drag China into the water, force Beijing to choose a border, and at the same time ask the West for more assistance.
But the reality is that the satellites don’t lie, orbital data is placed there.Take daily flight as military collaboration, just as it is because someone parachutes on a rainy day, saying he knew in advance that it was as absurd as it was to rain.
Chinese satellites are doing serious work in the sky, not accomplices on the battlefield. This kind of throwing the pot without evidence can deceive the eyeballs, but not the truth.