Four Russian satellites are now within striking distance of an ICEYE radarsat
arstechnica.comSure Russia can shoot down a satellite and pretend that it was not them. Nobody will believe that and they are opening themselves to having their own satellites shot down. It is like giving Ukraine a reason to build ASAT missiles and reason to use them.
Last time when Russia tried to launch a vehicle onto orbit, launching ramp has fell apart. So don't throw stones in the glass castle.
More likely scenario is zero consequences like after numerous Baltic fiber cable "accidents". russians mastered the art of mudded attribution. 2014 Little green men in Crimea, 2018 Petrov & Boshirov gay vacation unrelated to Skripal poisoning, 2023 Kakhovka Dam destruction, or just last ween UN convoy being droned. Everyone knows its them but is too scared to say it out loud and impose consequences.
To this day the only sanctions that really hurt russia have been enacted by Ukraine, the kinetic kind reaching their ships and refineries.
>2018 Petrov & Boshirov... too scared to say it out loud
There was a lot of saying out loud on that one and it's hard to figure cause and effect on consequences but the UK has sent a lot of missiles and drones to Ukraine.
But UK didnt send a single missile or drone into russia. This to russia is a sign of weakness and permission to keep pushing.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/russia-news-keir-starmer-kremlin...
"Almost 200 so-called Russian "shadow fleet" vessels have entered UK waters since the prime minister threatened to intercept them nearly seven weeks ago, BBC Verify analysis suggests." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8pvgw802no
Strong signal would be Alexander Mishkin, Anatoliy Chepiga and their superior fatally slipping on Ice in downtown Moscow, not putting them on sanctions list.
Googling what happened:
>In what then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called an "extraordinary international response" on the part of the UK's allies, on 26 and 27 March 2018 there followed a concerted action by the U.S., most EU member states, Albania, Australia, Canada, Macedonia, Moldova, and Norway, and other NATO states to expel a total of over 140 Russian accredited diplomats (including those expelled by the UK)
which I guess is not wacking Mishin and Chepiga but it's not nothing either.
140 sounds like a lot until you realize there is ~50 in UK alone right now, and ~3000 across EU.
Austria, the central hub of FSB spy network (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/01/vladimir-putin...), has over 200.
Freezing ownership of https://nypost.com/2023/03/16/putin-allys-child-revealed-as-... and many more https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/11/03/8005603/ like it would hurt putin more than some tiny number or diplomats.