Plans to build a domestically controlled satellite internet network in Low Earth Orbit have been gaining traction, positioning the project as an in-country counterpart to commercial systems such as Starlink. Bureau 1440, a company based in Russia, is building out a constellation of orbiting satellites under the name Rassvet — a term drawn from the Russian language that translates to "first light of the morning."
Serhiy Bekrestnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, put the number of Rassvet satellites Russia has placed into orbit at roughly 40. Sixteen satellites went up in March, with a follow-on batch dispatched the following July, according to available accounts.
A constellation of 292 satellites is set to give Eastern Europe uninterrupted overhead coverage under a plan Moscow intends to complete by 2027. Plans call for the constellation to reach 924 satellites in orbit by 2035.
Speaking to troops on 12 June, Putin told them that a domestic satellite-connectivity programme comparable to Starlink was advancing at pace and would be available for their use before long. Analysts in the defence field have assessed that the Rassvet network's architecture lends itself to remotely piloted long-range drone operations, along with the ability to sustain live data exchange between operators and aircraft.
According to assessments from Ukrainian military intelligence, the satellites currently offer only a narrow window of utility as they pass overhead, though expanded orbital coverage in the future could strengthen Russia's drone operations. According to those officials, the technology has the potential to bolster battlefield communication networks on the Russian side and alter the effectiveness of aerial drone activity directed at Ukraine.
Efforts to extend Starlink connectivity across Russian territory are under way, aimed at bolstering the communications infrastructure that supports long-range drone operations and broader battlefield activity. No authoritative confirmation of those services has emerged.
Moscow's foreign ministry put forward the assertion that Starlink technology served as a coordination tool for street demonstrations in both Iran and Venezuela. Efforts to interfere with Starlink's operations have been attributed to Russia.
Circulating intelligence assessments point to a Russian electronic warfare platform, designated Volna Kupol Garant, engineered to disrupt satellite communication links in orbit rather than attacking the ground-based terminals those links serve. Broadcasts of high-powered radio frequencies, according to those accounts, allow the technology to interfere with satellite receiver equipment orbiting at roughly 500 kilometres above Earth, while also knocking out internet and telecommunications access across an area stretching approximately 20 kilometres from the source. No independent corroboration of those assertions has emerged.
Disrupting a satellite's radio transmissions through jamming and rendering the hardware itself inoperable through physical force occupy distinct categories of action, according to those who study such matters.
Analysts have assessed that reaching the kind of broad, reliable satellite coverage that Starlink provides would demand a fundamentally different scale of launches and operational consistency — a threshold that the Rassvet network, though viewed by analysts as a step forward for military communications and drone operations, has not yet come close to meeting.
