Today, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched the Soyuz-2.1v launch vehicle with a military satellite from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

This is the 19th launch of a Russian rocket in 2023 and already the seventh from Plesetsk - the previous launch at this cosmodrome took place on December 21, when a military satellite was launched into orbit by a medium-class launch vehicle Soyuz-2.1b.

Adding what Rybar said about this:

Today, another launch of the Soyuz 2.1v launch vehicle with a military spacecraft took place from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region. So far this year, 8 out of the 19 Russian space launches were for the Ministry of Defense.

Usually, the defense department does not disclose the specific devices launched into orbit for obvious reasons. However, based on indirect signs, it is believed that some of them were new generation reconnaissance satellites.

📌 Describing the state of the military space group for remote sensing of the Earth at the beginning of 2022 is difficult without using censored words. The shortage (or rather, almost complete absence) of such spacecraft became evident in Syria, and unfortunately, the situation has not improved over the years. This has severely impacted the reconnaissance capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces during SMO.

However, there has been some improvement over the past two years. It is reported that spacecraft from the "Hrazdan" and "Bars-M" series have been deployed in orbit. While their individual characteristics may not match those of modern Western analogues, they are still clearly superior to the outdated Russian and Soviet spacecraft previously used by the Russian Armed Forces.

Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done, from space reconnaissance to the establishment of a communications constellation capable of high-speed data transmission. Without these capabilities, operating successfully in high-intensity conflicts is currently difficult, and in the future, it will be impossible.