Recently, both Britain and Germany have made public allegations against Russia of engaging in hostile actions against their satellites – representing an intensification in how space is now seen as an arena of strategic competition. For more on this story, see AOL +5 The Guardian +5 and Sky News =5.
What exactly are the allegations against them?

In the UK, the Chief of UK Space Command stated that Russian forces are “persistently” jamming and interfering with UK military satellites every week.
Boris Pistorius, Germany’s Defence Minister, issued a warning about two Russian reconnaissance satellites from the “Luch-Olymp” series, which are shadowing Intelsat satellites used by Germany and allies, such as Intelsat satellites that use Intelsat technology. According to him, Russia and China have expanded their space-warfare capabilities by disrupting, blinding, manipulating or physically destroying satellites; Sky News +2 or Ars Technica both agree with this assessment.
Why It Matters
Satellites play an essential role in modern military and civilian infrastructure – from communications and navigation (GPS) systems to surveillance and early warning systems. Any interference or disablement of another country’s space assets by another could seriously compromise both national defence and civilian resilience.

Jamming or blinding a satellite means interfering with its ability to transmit or receive data, which can compromise communications, navigation, or monitoring functions.

Shadowing satellites (i.e., placing one from another nation near one from your own) may enable eavesdropping, intelligence gathering and future disruptive actions by nations that want to prevent others from accessing it. Its Ars Technica recently provided further details.
Kinetic disruption (the physical destruction or disablement of a satellite) would pose even greater risks; including creating space debris that threatens other satellites.
Wikipedia
Space has long been considered a peaceful domain of science and communications; now, however, it has also become the site of competition, deterrence, and potential conflict.

Strategic Implications for UK, Germany and their Allies

Both countries are signalling that space has now become an operational domain of defense, alongside land, sea and air. Germany’s minister explicitly stated “future wars will no longer take place on Earth alone but also be waged openly in space” according to The Independent.
Increased investment is likely. Germany recently pledged multi-billion euro investments into space programs and defence capabilities aimed at strengthening resilience, deterrence and offensive options.
Advanced Television
For the United Kingdom and its allies (such as NATO), space security becomes integral to both national security and alliance posture. Adversaries could target satellites for military advantage or disruption of civilian systems — making space security essential to national and alliance posture.

Once interfering with satellites becomes widely understood as hostile action, the stakes increase dramatically for how nations respond — be it diplomatically, cyber or even through physical force.

What This Means for Society as a Whole

Civil Infrastructure: Satellites play a vital role in everyday services like banking, telecoms, aviation, maritime navigation and weather forecasting, which makes any disruption of them potentially devastating to society at large.

Space debris: Damaged satellites create long-term hazards in orbit that threaten other satellites as well as crewed spacecraft.

Norms and Rules: These allegations highlight an international norms gap governing how states behave in space, such as treaties like Outer Space Treaty which prohibit weapons of mass destruction but fail to fully restrict other military activities in space (Wikipedia).
Strategic Surprise: Nations may not immediately recognise when their satellites have come under “shadowing” or jamming until its effects manifest; making it harder to identify or attribute hostile acts in space.

Conclusion
The public accusations by Britain and Germany mark an inflection point: space assets are now considered vulnerable national security targets. Russia’s allegations that they stalked, jammed and possibly attempted to disrupt satellites belonging to allies indicate a wider shift in how states view and operate within orbit; as satellites become ever more essential components of military and civilian life alike, assuring their protection and establishing norms of behavior will likely become an integral challenge of this decade.