While Ukraine’s access to satellite internet was unexpectedly curtailed this week, Russia is pressing ahead with a battlefield communication network of its own — a development that, if successful, would compound Kyiv’s predicament.
The Ukrainian military reporting experiencing restrictions Wednesday in its use of Starshield, the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink, Kyiv says, and it has not been fully restored.
It remains unclear who was behind the disruptions.
But it followed President Donald Trump’s decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel exports and his demands that Ukraine halt strikes on Russian oil refineries.
With Republicans facing challenging midterm elections next month, Trump is trying to contain fuel prices that have surged since he began the war on Iran.
The low Earth orbit Starshield system, when functioning properly, enables secure communications, and has powered Ukraine’s midrange strike campaign on Russian-occupied territory. It gives Ukraine a battlefield edge that Russia has struggled to match.
But the Rassvet system Moscow is planning to deploy in 2027 would neutralize any such advantage.
A senior official at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington warned last month that the network posed a grave threat to Ukraine.
“If they launch Rassvet by the end of 2026, they will be able to hit Ukrainian targets real-time on our territory,” said Denys Sienik, the embassy’s deputy chief of mission. He planned to share details of individuals and firms Kyiv says have aided Russia with the Trump administration and Congress.
“If these entities are not sanctioned, it will actually make this program possible for Russia,” he said. “And that will be a game changer.”
Ukraine’s pleas have gone unanswered by the U.S. Treasury Department.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his country’s satellite systems lacked the capacity to support forces spread across hundreds of miles of frontline. This shortcoming, and a shortage of mobile ground terminals, many of them old and bulky, pushed Russian forces to rely on captured or smuggled Starlink hardware.
Russia managed to procure large quantities of Starlink terminals on the black market, but in February, SpaceX and Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense introduced a “white list” system that blocked unregistered terminals, including those used by Russian units.
That’s when Moscow began investing more heavily in a low Earth orbit constellation of small communications satellites, according to Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian military analyst who advises Zelensky on weapons technologies, said an operational Rassvet system would create an imbalance in the adversaries’ capabilities. Ukraine cannot use Starlink to control drones over Russian territory because the system does not operate there.
Rassvet, Russian for daybreak, could effectively remove range limits for real-time adjustments and target tracking, giving Russia online control of long-range strikes over Ukrainian territory.
“This will be a huge problem for us,” Beskrestnov wrote last month on Facebook. “No, not even a problem, it will be a small disaster.”
“By the time Rassvet satellites appear, we should have a developed electronic warfare system,” he wrote. “And not just developed but have all key infrastructure facilities already be covered by it, and this will not be cheap and fast.”
The Rassvet system is not yet ready, according to Juliana Suess, a space policy researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Bureau 1440, the company developing the system, has said it needs about 300 satellites in orbit. It plans a commercial launch in 2027.
Russia is depending on China to help set up the system, Luzin said. Its satellites, he said, look like reverse-engineered first-generation Starlinks.
“I think this timeline is hardly possible,” he said, “unless Russia’s urgent military needs, supplies of launch vehicles and supplies of the satellites from China will allow Bureau 1440 to deploy the system faster.”
Starlink has more than 11,000 satellites in low Earth orbit.
Putin boasted in June that Rassvet was “in no way inferior to Starlink, maybe even superior in some ways.”
“The main point is that the problem has been solved — technologically and intellectually,” he told Russian troops. “Now it’s a matter of expanding the constellation, and that is how we will proceed.”
Other senior officials have said the system will provide around-the-clock global connectivity in “Russian interests.”
But the rollout has fallen well short of Moscow’s goal of having 156 operational satellites in orbit by the end of 2026. It has launched 32, but analysts say some were lost and some failed to reach the desired height of 500 miles.
Lower orbit means more satellites are needed for global coverage.
“With a constellation that large, you are always bound to have certain teething problems,” Suess said.
The Russian space industry, she said, has been beset by brain drain, aging infrastructure and corruption — all of which are likely to present obstacles to the project.
“But then again, we have seen them pull off projects,” she said. “So, you know, it’s not like they can’t do things if they really want to.”
Luzin and Suess said it was unlikely that sanctions would be able to stop the project, given Moscow’s long experience adapting to restrictions and setting up procurement routes through third countries. But making the components less accessible could delay its deployment.
“Finding alternatives specifically with a space supply chain can have a really big impact on your wider projects,” Suess said. “For example, it might make your satellite heavier or bulkier, which in turn will have an impact on what launch vehicle you can use or how many satellites will fit into your launch vehicle, which can really mess with the timeline.”
correctionA previous version of this article reported incorrectly that Starshield service was cut off in Ukraine on Wednesday. Ukrainian military reported speed restrictions, not a shutdown.
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