Russia will treat any hacking of its satellites as a justification for war, the head of the country’s space agency was quoted as saying in a news report on Wednesday

Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin denied media reports that Russian satellite control centres have already been hacked amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, while warning against any attempts to do so, Interfax news agency reported

New Delhi:

The chief of Russias space agency, Roscosmos, has warned hackers attempting to disrupt the operation of the countrys satellites that their actions could be construed as a “casus belli, i.e., an event that justifies a war”.

Dmitry Rogozin’s comment came shortly after a cyberattack on Russia’s RKA Mission Control Center.

Speaking to a news channel on Wednesday, the official said that “those who are attempting to do this” should know that “it is a crime, which calls for a very severe punishment”, RT reported.

Rogozin went on to stress that the disruption of operation of “any country’s space forces is a so-called casus belli”, which is a Latin term used to describe an event that either leads to or justifies the beginning of a war.

Russia will treat any hacking of its satellites as a justification for war, the head of the country’s space agency was quoted as saying in a news report on Wednesday.

Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin denied media reports that Russian satellite control centres have already been hacked amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, while warning against any attempts to do so, Interfax news agency reported.

“Offlining the satellites of any country is actually a casus belli, a cause for war,” Interfax quoted him as saying.

Rogozin also said his agency wanted British-based tech firm OneWeb to provide guarantees that its satellites are not going to be used against Russia, Interfax added.

Without these, Rogozin said Russia will cancel the planned March 4 launch of 36 OneWeb satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan, without compensating OneWeb, the Russian news agency reported.

The Roscosmos chief also threatened the people responsible that his corporation would identify them, and hand the data over to Russian security services so that they could open a criminal investigation against the hackers.

Earlier, several Telegram groups claimed that the NB65 hacker group, which is allegedly linked to Anonymous, had successfully breached Roscosmos’ communications with Russia’s satellites, RT reported.

However, Rogozin dismissed the claims, saying that while there were attempts to penetrate the system, Roscosmos’ defense managed to fend them off.

Agencies.