Four years ago, a senior official in Russia’s foreign ministry painted a bullseye on commercial satellite networks that assist Ukraine in its fight against invading Russian military forces.

On Wednesday, several days after a Russian military spacecraft moved within striking distance of one of those commercial satellites, the same Russian diplomat assured the world there’s no reason to worry.

There’s a sharp incongruity in those statements from Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy head of Russia’s delegation to the United Nations. Vorontsov’s comments Wednesday in the UN General Assembly’s First Committee came moments after a US official called attention to recent maneuvers by Kosmos 2612 , a Russian military craft that approached a US-registered commercial satellite some 340 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth.

“Just last weekend, Russia’s Ministry of Defense Kosmos 2612 exhibited threatening behavior by intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite,” Brian Hardesty, a US State Department…