Very misleading title. While, yes, the satellites were build by european company for russia, they are russian owned satellites controlled by russia. They are essentially using their own crappier satellite network because they can't use starlink anymore.
85
Vox-Machi-Buddies4 days ago
+19
Also misleading because it's buried in the article that Russia only has *unauthorized* access to Starlink, which has been drastically reduced now that Ukraine can give SpaceX a list of terminals they control.
Makes it hard to see this as a "replacement" for Starlink, given they didn't have unfettered access to Starlink in the first place
19
Veritas_IX2 days ago
+1
Also that satellites were produced and supported by European companies despite sanctions.
1
Brusion4 days ago
+569
This is not a replacement for Starlink. These are geostationary satellites, so while you can get a decent enough download speed, latency is almost a second, vs 40 ms.
Also, these are not something anyone can shut down or block, these may have been built by Europeans, but the they are owned(or stolen) by russia. It's not the same situation as Starlink.
569
wisembrace4 days ago
+178
They have had these satellites all along, so there must be a reason why they chose Starlink over these in the first place. The fact that this is suddenly news makes me wonder if the article is based on a Russian propaganda piece.
178
jackp0t7894 days ago
+120
>so there must be a reason why they chose Starlink over these in the first place.
Latency of 40ms vs 1 second
120
ThrowAway16384974 days ago
+68
Also much higher power and dish requirements. It will eat greatly into payload and make them unusable for mid-range drones. The mid-range artillery and supply route hunters were one of the scarier Starlink use cases. This won't replace them for strike but recon will be possible.
68
Far-Algae-4224 days ago
+8
It will be extremely difficult 1 second latency means they are moving a drone that is a second behind reality. A lot can happen in a second to a drone flying 🤣
8
BallzSpartan4 days ago
+14
Wouldn’t it be 2 seconds? One second for the feed to arrive, one second for the input to be delivered back
14
ThrowAway16384974 days ago
+2
You can use GPS equivalents and way points for navigation and even some targeting. Most RC planes and boats have waypoint navigation at this point. I'm not sure what you expect a drone to adjust to besides wind.
It's not enough to hit a moving target but not impossible with more software on board to take over. That's why I suggested Recon over strike drones.
My point is they can and are making adjustments but with drawbacks.
2
hotel2oscar4 days ago
+15
Geostationary satellites have significant latency and typically lower data speeds than low earth satellites like Starlink. These are some of the selling points of the Starlink system.
15
Dexterus4 days ago
+25
Broadband internet for hundreds of thousands of troops vs DSL and high latency for a couple thousand.
For battlefield awareness from scratch starlink is a must. Someone like US won't see orders of magnitude improvement cause they already optimized their comms to obtain the awareness with limited comms. Russia, being sucky at it, needed that unlimited bandwidth for it.
25
dbxp4 days ago
+2
I'm guessing they'd use these satellites at the brigade level. And for everyone else it's back to walkie talkies and mobile phones
2
GrumpyNerdSoul4 days ago
+13
The dish of these stations need to be pointed at the satellite. That means that unless you got an active gimbal for the dish it is not usable on vehicles.
13
Ok_Buddy_33244 days ago
+5
The dishes are also much larger. These cannot be used as replacement for what they were doing with starlink
5
dbxp4 days ago
+3
Starlink is way higher bandwidth. They're fine for phone calls or messages but you'd struggle to send video without reserving bandwidth
3
dapterail4 days ago
+2
how much kb/s?
2
dbxp4 days ago
+3
On the order of 10mb for regular satellite vs 500mb for starlink. In theory you can get higher speed links using geostationary satellites but then you're looking at mounting it on a truck with a generator, the kind of thing naval vessels or coalition bases had in Afghanistan.
3
dapterail4 days ago
+2
10 Mb is really good. For single unit like drone.
2
dbxp4 days ago
+1
I don't think you can fit this sort of transmitter on the small drones which are common in Ukraine. You'd likely use this sort of transmitter for a command station and then use regular radios at the unit level. However in the case of Russia those regular radios have been just regular walkie talkies and mobile phones in the past so can easily be tracked.
1
lAljax4 days ago
+32
I thought you could geofence an area to deny service.
So anywhere 100 kms outside of the line of contact should be banned.
32
Just-Sale-70154 days ago
+61
Russia bought these sats (before the war).
>According to Defense Express, the Express-AM7 satellite was manufactured by Airbus using the Eurostar-3000 platform and launched into geostationary orbit in 2015. It is part of the satellite constellation operated by Russia’s state-owned enterprise “Kosmicheskaya Svyaz.”
>The report further states that multiple operational satellites within the “Express” series were either built directly by Airbus or include telecommunications payloads produced by Thales Alenia Space.
>These include satellites launched between 2009 and 2021, such as Express-AM44, Express-AT2, Express-AM8, Express-AMU1, Express-80, Express-103, Express-AMU3, and Express-AMU7.
61
boberro4 days ago
+21
2015 was a year after 2014 so it should have already been illegal to sell them to Russia as they were under embargo, non?
21
mfb-4 days ago
+13
The contract for Express-AM7 was from 2012. Ekspress-AM44 was launched in 2009. Ekspress-AT2 was launched in March 2014. Express-AM8 was supposed to launch in 2012 but delayed to 2015. I didn't check the others but I think the pattern is clear. This is before-2014 activity, even though the launch might have happened a bit later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ekspress_satellites
13
Limp-Nail-12654 days ago
+1
2015 was after the war and after the sanctions. Unless you want to say it was a trick and no sanctions meant to harm russian war efforts in the east of Ukraine and Crimea.
1
Just-Sale-70154 days ago
+11
These are considered at best dual use items. There weren't much restrictions on these after 2014. France even sold tank guns sights to Russia till 2020 or so, using a 'grandfathered' clause that allowed contracts from before 2014 to continue.
And on sats in particular looking the other way was enticing because Russia was offering (cheaper) launch services in exchange. Starting in 2022 they started to demand that Western sats to be put in orbit can't be dual use, which of course resulted in a complete divorce [https://payloadspace.com/megaconstellations-dual-us/](https://payloadspace.com/megaconstellations-dual-us/)
11
Limp-Nail-12654 days ago
+6
Bullshіt EU introduced sanctions on dual-use items for Russia since 2014: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/LSU/?uri=CELEX:32014D0119&qid=1774560874456
So telling me about French tank guns I was correct and you want to say they were just a cosmetic measure to feel good about without harming russia effort to rearm with modern technology.
6
Just-Sale-70154 days ago
+3
Can you be more specific what dual use items were prohibited in 2014? The list you linked to combines pre- and post-2022 restrictions.
Even Regulation 2021/821 doesn't say these are prohibited only that they "may be prohibited at any time by the competent authority of the Member State". Which gave a lot of latitude to states. Art 9 established a duty of the member states to notify the Commission of the specific prohibition they decided to enact, so you should be able to find these notificaoins all in one place in the Official Journal of the European Union, but it can be a chore to look them up.
You can be sure that Russia would have retaliated with similar counter-measures, so I doubt some such were passed with regard to sats in 2014, given the 2022 blowup on the matter.
3
Limp-Nail-12654 days ago
-1
EU’s Council Decision 2014/512/CFSP and Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 explicitly banned export of all dual-use goods, can't be more specific than that.
I understand your wish to gaslight people at this moment, since you can't say that you are partially at blame for death of civilians. However everything is being meticulously documented and after the war those who made an effort helping will be held responsible one way or another.
-1
Just-Sale-70154 days ago
+8
Bruh, it says the opposite
>the sale, supply, transfer or export of dual-use items for military use or to military end-users in Russia should be prohibited. This prohibition should not affect the exports of dual-use goods and technology, including for aeronautics and for the space industry, for non-military use and/or for non-military end-users.
All that Russia had to do was to buy through some front that was ostensibly non-military. I don't know what status the EU considered for Kosmicheskaya Svyaz in particular, back then.
8
Current-Function-7294 days ago
-5
Would they truly not keep an embedded root certificate that lets them reassert control?
-5
Adventurous_Bus_4374 days ago
+37
Yes, because the moment the word gets out the entire European satellite industry would collapse.
37
Current-Function-7294 days ago
-10
Doubtful. Most of their market isn’t or shouldn’t be selling satellites to dictatorships that invade neighbors.
-10
Adventurous_Bus_4374 days ago
+21
The US once was one of our most significant allies and ideologically aligned. How did that turn out? Point in case critical technology like Sats are usually not sold with backdoors from the manufacturer
21
Ok_Pudding_37644 days ago
In 2014 Russia had already taken over Crimea. Russia had already taken over South Ossetia and inside Georgia in 2008. Not sure your comparison is valid as Russia has already shown aggression by 2015.
0
Current-Function-7294 days ago
-8
Seems like a mistake. It isn’t like airframes where you can deny maintenance and parts.
-8
grchelp20184 days ago
+3
If you sell anything with strings attached, you are risking them taking their business elsewhere or doing it themselves.
3
Current-Function-7294 days ago
+1
That’s fine.
1
ShadowPhynix4 days ago
+10
That's not the point - satellites are considered to be core defense infrastructure.
Knowing another country can take control of them means you've ceded critical parts of your defense to another country - no one would be ok with that.
Just because you're allies now, doesn't mean you will be throughout the lifetime of the satellite. If there is a backdoor, they're not revealing it over this.
10
Just-Sale-70154 days ago
+4
You could probably make a point that Europeans should stop selling them and lease them instead. But several of the Russian sats aren't even entirely European. They just bought the telecom modules and built the rest. Hard to lease boards since they do nothing by themselves.
4
DisasterNo17404 days ago
+2
As if other nations give a f***. That is leverage they don't want to give to someone who might kill switch you for whatever reason they desire. You might claim "just don't be dictatorships that invade neighbors" but other nations wont see it that way. They only see someone who gets to kill switch their satellites if that someone wants to do so.
2
pyotrdevries4 days ago
+2
Also the dishes for this kind of system are both moving (instead of solid state beamforming antennas like StarLink etc) and significantly larger and power hungry. So fine for a command center but not for some units to bring with them.
2
ashleyshaefferr4 days ago
+2
Ya. Weebs who shit on elon (rightfully so, he's a loser) dont realize how superior starlink is and all it enables
2
Jamuro4 days ago
+104
assuming the 1mb/s upload speed is correct then this is still very much hamstringing russia.
for comparison a 480p video would exceed that rate already.
this is an old timey satellite telephone in a drone war.
104
Initial_E4 days ago
+24
But it is freedom from being at the whim of another person or corporation or international law, which is kind of the point.
24
lmaydev4 days ago
+20
Freedom to have a shitty satellite phone
20
Brilliant-Smile-81544 days ago
+11
Which beats no phone at all, that's the point.
11
Initial_E4 days ago
+1
I wonder are there any other nasty secrets they have in there
1
PyroIsSpai4 days ago
+2
Free to be an a******.
2
dapterail4 days ago
+1
850x480 at 1 Mb/s would certainly be okay.
1
bearnaisepudding4 days ago
-5
1 millibit per second is super slow, you couldn't use that for anything.
-5
Jamuro4 days ago
+10
megabit/s
10
Koala_eiO4 days ago
+2
That's why we use capital letters. You want to differentiate bit and byte, mega and milli, you use the right symbol. Why do you think companies present figures in Mb/s? Because they know non-scientists don't see the difference with MB/s and think it's just typography.
2
Sayakai4 days ago
+3
At the same time, sensible people reserve snark about these things for symbols where confusion is at least theoretically possible, and no one would assume that Russia has gained the ability to send three bits per month.
3
Jamuro4 days ago
+4
i wrote the post on my phone ... grammar, spelling and case sensitivity are optional while using a touch screen.
i clarified once asked, so no need to be pedantic
4
bearnaisepudding4 days ago
+1
How are you able to write with only lower case on your phone? Every keyboard I've used on phones have enabled upper case automatically after punctuation, so using only lower case have been a conscious decision. It's also been possible to switch to upper case manually whenever I like on every phone I've used.
1
Jamuro4 days ago
+1
disabled it ... it does not handle different languages well. (especially once technical terms get mixed in)
1
nicuramar4 days ago
+1
Mega is capital M :)
1
PyroIsSpai4 days ago
+9
Sounds like we need little spacecraft that can grab a satellite, fire thrusters, and forcibly de-orbit them.
9
G_Morgan4 days ago
+3
No need to be that complicated. Just need to hit the sat with a laser until you've disrupted its orbit
3
Drak_is_Right4 days ago
+1
If crashing is desired, Boeing is an expert at that.
1
Wrooomer4 days ago
+1
Moonraker ; )
1
cyberianscribe4 days ago
+24
Hope nobody decides to blow up any more satellites.
24
Just-Sale-70154 days ago
+28
>On March 4, 2026, at approximately 8:45 a.m. Moscow time, the geostationary satellite Express-AT1 (orbital position 56° East longitude) experienced a sudden failure — an instantaneous shutdown of all systems for unknown reasons. The operator, FSUE “Kosmicheskaya Svyaz” (GP KS / RSCC), reported an “abnormal situation.” All attempts to restore the satellite have failed.
At present, no details or causes of the incident have been reported in the media. Therefore, the specifics of the malfunction and the current state of the satellite’s systems remain unknown. However, the very fact that the satellite has been officially declared lost confirms that Express-AT1 is completely out of service. It is also unknown whether the Russian side still has the capability to control the satellite’s orbit or whether it can move it into a graveyard orbit.
28
cyberianscribe4 days ago
+2
Thanks for this news. It will be quite interesting (to say the least) if any additional satellites within the "Express" series experience a similar malfunction anytime soon.
2
JConRed4 days ago
+8
Especially up in geostationary orbit. That would be horrible to say the least.
8
Adventurous_Bus_4374 days ago
+5
Getting to geostationary orbit is incredibly hard and would destroy coverage over the entire continent (give or take)
Not even the most stupid country should consider that a good idea
5
Galapagos_Finch4 days ago
+11
The EP has to investigate if and how Airbus and Thales exported satellites to Russia after the Russian annexation of Crimea, and if they have European courts must hold Airbus and Thales executives personally liable for sanctions violations.
That is the only way that a sanction regime can function. The same should be the case for finance and legal firms that have helped Russian oligarchs avoid sanctions and move money out of the European Single Market.
It’s not happening because white collar crime isn’t treated seriously in Europe, because it’s white people moving in the same circles as center and far-right politicians doing it.
11
Fuzzy_Ad_58594 days ago
-14
Then block them too!
Europeans should be aware of that, and make it their top priority.
No data for ruzzians! That's why their advancement has stopped recent months, in part because no Starlink, and in part because they're blocking their own channels, trying to control the web (too scared the Iranian protests will happen with Putin too). It's a good development.
-14
Expert_Ant_27674 days ago
+65
Have you read the article? Although the satellites were manufactured in Europe, they are operated by Russia. So it is a Russian system, the headline is highly misleading.
65
ForAThought4 days ago
+17
"Have you read the article?"
Seriously? This is Listnook, who reads the article before posting?
17
Tacklestiffener4 days ago
+5
I didn't think that was even a thing.
5
MrFluffykinz4 days ago
+43
You should probably read before commenting
43
Karr0k4 days ago
+15
Sir, this is listnook, we don't do that here...it's like.. the law or something.
15
Radamat4 days ago
+1
This is not "Starlink". Those 12 satellites launched by Bureau 1440 are Russian Starlink.
1
mcfedr4 days ago
-11
how was airbus allowed to build these after the russian invasion gad already started,
yet another complete failure of sanctions, which will be much harder to fix now. probably the only option is targeting the satellites, maybe the ground stations
-11
ChemicalNectarine7764 days ago
+6
I think these are older satellites they bought years ago.
6
mcfedr4 days ago
+1
says was launched in 2015
1
AWinterPeople4 days ago
-14
FU Musk
-14
HettySwollocks4 days ago
+4
Solid argument here
Edit. Have you ever written more than a sentence?
4
Alpacapalooza4 days ago
+1
Unrelated, but not wrong.
1
AWinterPeople4 days ago
-1
I stand by my comment
-1
Hapten4 days ago
-11
Are we going to hold these companies to the same standard as Starlink or ignore it because EU?
-11
Mufmuf4 days ago
+14
It's Russian satellite companies (ekspress and yamal satellites) that happened to buy some kit from europe that they sent up themselves before the current war (2022) and most of the modern embargoes on selling communication equipment to Russia.
It's also European kit in Russian satellites, it's not under the jurisdiction of Europe.
It's like being mad at Toyota because they're using trucks they bought in 2011 for the war.
14
HaikeusQ4 days ago
+2
"current war" started in 2014
2
Alarming_Airline_694 days ago
-12
Thx Europe
-12
jywchoe4 days ago
-11
At least be consistent Listnook. If you blame Musk aiding Russa in the war beceause of Starlink, then you have to blame Europe for aiding Russia in the war in the same way. Otherwise, admit you were wrong in the first place.
-11
nicuramar4 days ago
+4
It’s not Europe’s satellites.
4
KebabGud4 days ago
-4
only reason i believe this is happening is because they have found a counter to starlink.
89 Comments