Ukraine and Russia are both developing their own alternatives to Starlink, the satellite system used for battlefield communications whose access is ultimately controlled by tech titan Elon Musk, Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky said.<\/p>\n
Musk last year restricted Russian access to Starlink satellites over the Ukraine war. Experts say this has probably disrupted Russian forces\u2019 tactical command and restricted their offensive capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Russians are building a Starlink equivalent together with the Chinese, and they believe they will have this project ready by December 2026,\u201d Zelensky said in remarks made public Sunday.<\/p>\n
He added that Ukraine would not \u201cjust sit and wait for Russia and China\u201d and was \u201cimplementing a similar project with a European country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have begun testing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ukraine is seeking authorisation from Musk and the US administration to use Starlink satellites for operations in Russian territory.<\/p>\n
Musk has shifted his stance on Ukraine several times since Russia\u2019s invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s contacts with him were reportedly handled by former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who was recently ousted.<\/p>\n
Zelensky said Musk believed allowing Starlink coverage over Russia would be an escalation, but Ukraine argued it could help shorten the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis really could lead to a reduction precisely in those capabilities that Russia uses to drag out the war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Zelensky said Kyiv was trying to hit Russian ballistic launchers, as Moscow has stepped up its use of the missiles, which can effectively only be destroyed by US-designed Patriot systems.<\/p>\n
Ukraine had received 675 Patriot missiles in 2023, compared to 364 in 2025, and 264 in 2026, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our anti\u2011ballistic missiles are minimized \u2014 here is another tactic\u2026 hunting their nearby locations from which ballistic missiles are launched,\u201d Zelensky said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine and Russia are both developing their own alternatives to Starlink, the satellite system used for battlefield communications…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[983],"class_list":["post-32125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}