In the diagram of the orbit, the part of the orbit nearest to earth is at the south pole and the farthest is at the north pole/
Why wasn't it reversed to put the satellite closer to Russia?
Nevermind, I answered my own question at the wikipedia page for the
Moniya orbit.
This orbit maximizes the dwell time over the target. I misread the article and thought it was saying that these satellites only had 15 minutes of time over Russia, but that was referring to low earth orbit satellites.
