Russia Just Launched Five Objects Into Space. One Problem, There Were Supposed To Be Four

ESA

 

The available information suggests that the Russians may have put yet another secretive “killer satellite” into orbit.

The Russian military says it successfully placed three classified communications satellites into orbit today, along with the upper stage of the rocket that put them there.  But according to the U.S. military’s Combined Space Operations Center, or CSpOC, a fifth object, possibly another, unannounced satellite, may have hitched a ride into space on the launch.

The Rokot/Briz-KM launch vehicle blasted off from Pad 3 at Site 133 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Western Russia at just before 5:30 PM local time on Nov. 30, 2018, according to RussianSpaceWeb.com. At approximately 7:12 PM, the three Rodnik communications satellites had deployed into their assigned orbits. Russia has named the trio of satellites Kosmos-2530, Kosmos-2531, and Kosmos-2532.

China electronic spying threat

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe met last week in Beijing. The delegation traveling on the E-4B plane with Mr. Mattis had to take extraordinary security precautions. (Associated Press) Photo by: Mark Schiefelbein

 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis‘ recent visit to China highlighted the security dangers posed by sophisticated Chinese electronic spying in the capital of Beijing.

Security precautions for those traveling with the defense secretary were extremely tight during his June 26-28 visit.

To prevent Chinese spying through cellphones or laptop computers, the 10 journalists traveling aboard the secretary’s Air Force E-4B nuclear command plane, a militarized Boeing 747, were prohibited from bringing any electronic devices that were taken off the aircraft during the two-day visit back onto the plane. Anything that used wireless connectivity was deemed potentially vulnerable to Chinese hacking.

Pacom Nominee: China Military Islands Now Control South China Sea

Chinese President Xi Jinping / Getty Images

 

Admiral urges rapid U.S. buildup of hypersonic and medium-range missiles to counter China threat

China has deployed electronic attack systems and other military facilities on disputed islands in the South China Sea and is now capable of controlling the strategic waterway, according to the admiral slated to be the next Pacific Command chief.

Additionally, the command nominee Adm. Philip Davidson told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a written statement this week that the military urgently needs hypersonic and other advanced weaponry to defeat China’s People’s Liberation Army in a future conflict.

Unarmed Russian Air Force jet overflies the Pentagon, Capitol, CIA

(CNN) An unarmed Russian Air Force aircraft overflew the US Capitol, the Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency and Joint Base Andrews at low altitude on Wednesday as part of a longstanding treaty that allows the militaries of the United States and Russia to observe the other from the air, according to two people familiar with the flight.

The flight was part of the Treaty on Open Skies, which allows military aircraft from the United States and Russia and other nations to fly aerial observation flights to observe military sites of the 34 signatory nations.

PLA’s hacking hotel

American military intelligence has identified a hotel complex that is serving as an ersatz headquarters for a Chinese military hacking unit. China is basically hiding its operations cyberattack units in plain sight.

 

U.S. military intelligence has identified a headquarters for a Chinese military hacking unit — inside two Beijing hotels.

According to an open-source intelligence report produced by the Army’s Asian Studies Detachment, “the Headquarters/Jintang and Seasons Hotel appear to be located in the same or at least adjacent buildings, both of which are, according to available information, owned by or connected to the People’s Liberation Army 4th Department.”

The Fourth Department, known as 4PLA, until recently was part of the military’s General Staff Department and is also known as the Electronic Countermeasures and Radar Department. The unit was reorganized into a new PLA service called the Strategic Support Force. The roll of the department is to conduct offensive electronic warfare and information warfare, including offensive cyberattacks.

Russian arms for Hizballah cross Israel’s red line

President Vladimir Putin turns aside all Israel’s complaints about Russian arms supplies to Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hizballah, whenever he talks to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – roughly every week-to-ten days. The issue is also raised without results by Israeli officials on trips to Moscow, including the visit by Yossi Cohen, Director of the Mossad, to the Russian capital on July 1.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu persisted in complaining again about the Russian arms reaching the Lebanese terrorist group in his latest phone conversation with Putin on Saturday, July 23. He made the call, debkafile military sources say, primarily to raise another topic at issue, the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) flights from Syria into Israeli airspace on July 17.

U.S. Shadowing Russian Ship in Atlantic Near Nuclear Submarine Areas

 

High-tech spy vessel carries cable-cutting gear, mini-subs

U.S. intelligence ships, aircraft, and satellites are closely watching a Russian military vessel in the Atlantic that has been sailing near a U.S. nuclear missile submarine base and underwater transit routes, according to Pentagon officials.

The Russian research ship Yantar has been tracked from the northern Atlantic near Canada since late August as it makes its way south toward Cuba.

Defense officials familiar with reports on the Russian ship say the Yantar is believed to be gathering intelligence on underwater sensors and other equipment used by U.S. nuclear submarines based at Kings Bay, Georgia. The submarines, their transit lanes, and training areas stretch from the coastal base through the Atlantic to Europe.

Intelligence analysts believe the ship, one of Russia’s newest military research vessels commissioned earlier this year, is part of a larger strategic intelligence-gathering operation against U.S. nuclear missile submarines and other targets.

The Cuba Deal: Why Now?

At this point it time it’s a complete waste of time to ask “why?” as the floodgates have now been opened. Immigration is not the point behind the concern, although it is a concern. The main concern is that Cuba, with one of the world’s most renowned spy and espionage capabilities (after the USA/Russia/Israel), is a hornets nest of intelligence gathering. Russia has in the past, as now, state-of-the-art intelligence gathering equipment that listens over all aspects of American communication in the region. Cuban spies were also trained by Russians during the Castro revolution and have continued to be ever since. Once that floodgate to opens, you’re opening the door to this, plus inviting the Russians right in — in addition to whatever else Pandora’s Box has to offer.

 

On Wednesday, Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced the most profound change in relations between the United States and Cuba in decades.

Why now? What explains the timing of this historic change to a policy in place for over half a century? The short answer is that the decision to restore diplomatic ties between the two countries was driven by a surprising convergence of biology and technology. Biology dictated the aging of the Castro brothers and other leaders of their revolutionary generation in Cuba, as well as the graying of the Cuban exile population in Florida. This dynamic altered old political balances both inside the Cuban regime and in U.S. electoral politics. Technology—especially innovations in the extraction of shale oil and gas—allowed the United States to upend the world’s energy map and push down the price of oil, thus undermining the ability of Venezuela, a major oil-exporter, to continue providing a lifeline to Cuba’s bankrupt economy. Cuba needed an economic alternative, and the U.S. became one.

Russian spy base in Syria used to monitor rebels and Israel seized

In the video footage logos of Syrian intelligence and Russian military intelligence can be seen on posters hung up on the wall. Photo: Youtube

 

Syrian rebels have seized a joint Russian-Syrian spy base which was used to gather intelligence on the movements of rebel groups and Israel.

Located in southern Syria close to the Israel border, the base on the Tel Al Hara mountain known as ‘Centre C’ by Russian intelligence was taken over by the Free Syrian Army – the largely moderate, Western-backed rebel group – on Sunday.

The capture of the base, which was abandoned prior to the rebels’ arrival, came after weeks of fierce fighting involving Syrian government troops as well as Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

In video footage of the base released by the Free Syrian Army, a rebel officer is shown pointing out maps, photographs and information in Russian and Arabic, as well as the logos of Syrian intelligence and Russian military intelligence (GRU), which deals with signal intelligence.

GCHQ’s Cyprus base to play key intelligence role ahead of any US-led Syria intervention

GCHQ facilities in Cyprus are expected to play a key role in collecting intelligence which will inform any military strike against Syria despite Parliament last week voting against the UK joining in with any potential attack.

The Cheltenham-based listening post has a presence on the island which is used to intercept messages from across the Middle East.

Russian bomber conducts practice strikes on U.S. missile defenses in Asia

A Russian bomber recently carried out simulated cruise missile attacks on U.S. missile defenses in Asia, raising new questions about Moscow’s goal in future U.S.-Russian defense talks.

According to U.S. officials, a Russian Tu-22M Backfire bomber on Feb. 26 simulated firing air-launched cruise missiles at an Aegis ship deployed near Japan as part of U.S. missile defenses.

A second mock attack was conducted Feb. 27 against a ground-based missile defense site in Japan that officials did not identify further.

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The bomber targeting comes as Russia is building up forces in the Pacific by modernizing submarines and building a spy ship specifically for intelligence-gathering against U.S. missile defenses.

Iranians prepare terror campaign inside U.S.

As has been mentioned here numerous times: America has been warned time and time again, yet chooses the path of complacency while simultaneously portraying preparedness that is nothing more than a false sense of security.

“The economy is just fine, the shopping malls are still open and the terrorist bad guys are ‘over there‘ in a far off land, therefore there is no need to be concerned. Anything about sleeper cells or America being attacked again is simply fear mongering.”

If so goes todays mentality, then tomorrow’s United States will go as well.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is alive and well in the U.S. and the country’s law enforcement officials ignore them at their peril, according to former U. S. Air Force officer Steven O’Hern.

O’Hern says that the Revolutionary Guard, long an influential factor in the radical Islamic regime in Iran, does most of its surveillance and intelligence gathering through its proxy force, Hezbollah, considered by many to be a terror group.