Russia Invades Ukraine
Russia is making swift progress on a space-based Internet network that could end the battlefield advantage Ukraine enjoys through its use of Starlink. But the Russian satellite Internet is likely to have one key wartime vulnerability, experts say.Rassvet (Dawn), a project of Russia's Bureau 1440 company, launched its first batch of 16 operational satellites into orbit in March. A second package was released in July and the company reportedly plans to have hundreds of satellites in orbit by next year.
A Rassvet satellite Internet dish designed for trains on display in November 2025.
Bureau 1440 has marketed its Starlink-type Internet system for civilian use, but Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly discussed the project in the context of the war in Ukraine. During a June 12 meeting in the Kremlin, Putin told a group of soldiers that work is "proceeding at a good pace" on a Starlink equivalent that he hopes troops will “feel on the ground soon.”China, the EU, and several other powers are also developing their own versions of Starlink.Ian Muirhead, a space systems engineer and former British serviceman, told RFE/RL that the current rush to develop low, Earth-orbit satellite Internet is largely due to the fact that “a modern military cannot operate without relatively high data-capacity communications."He says the Ukraine conflict has demonstrated that "the only real way you can assure [data-heavy communication] in conflict zones is with satellite constellations.”
