Russia’s Starlink copycat has failed so far but still threatens Ukraine

Russia’s Satellite Constellation Stumbles Again as Ukraine’s War Efforts Target Its Launch Infrastructure

Usagevpn.com – The war in Ukraine has turned orbital space into a battlefield of its own. For more than four years, both sides have depended on satellite-based communications to direct drones, coordinate artillery, and maintain command links across terrain where ground networks have been shattered. Moscow’s answer to its dependence on foreign satellite systems — the Rassvet programme, a homegrown constellation designed to guide its own unmanned aircraft and guided munitions — has suffered yet another setback. Not a single one of the 16 satellites placed into orbit on 19 July reached the altitude at which they were meant to operate, according to analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), drawing on tracking data from the live satellite-monitoring platform N2YO.

The July Launch: A Missed Orbit

Rather than settling into their designated 870-kilometre operational band, the majority of the July batch is hovering between 300 and 400 kilometres above Earth. That gap is not merely a number on a telemetry screen. Satellites flying at lower altitudes encounter denser atmospheric layers, which accelerates orbital decay, drains propellant reserves at a faster rate, and compresses the usable service life of each spacecraft. At least two of the 16 appear to be on trajectories that will carry them back into the atmosphere for reentry. Even if the remaining units eventually stabilise, their operational windows will be shorter than Moscow originally projected.

This is not an isolated malfunction. Of the 16 Rassvet units launched earlier, on 24 March, twelve did reach their intended 550-kilometre altitude and remain there. Those twelve already provide Russian ground terminals with two daily connectivity passes over Ukrainian territory, totalling up to 90 minutes of link time. The cumulative success rate across all launches to date stands at just 37.5 percent — meaning nearly two-thirds of every satellite sent skyward has failed to achieve a sustainable operational orbit.

Why the Constellation Matters on the Ground

Ukrainian forces have built much of their recent tactical advantage around Starlink terminals. The low-latency links enable reconnaissance drones to relay imagery in near real time, allow strike packages to be retargeted mid-flight, and keep artillery batteries synchronised even where Russian bombardment has obliterated fibre-optic and cellular networks. Losing that access would be a severe operational blow, which is precisely why Kyiv and SpaceX moved in early February to a “whitelist” architecture that restricts the network to verified terminals. Ukraine’s defence ministry confirmed at the time that Starlink units being used illicitly by Russian forces had been deactivated under the new protocol.

That deactivation appears to have compressed Moscow’s timeline. The ISW assessment notes that Russia seems to be accelerating constellation deployment in direct response to the Starlink cutoff, and warns:

“Russia may have been unprepared to accelerate constellation deployment at this pace and will likely face additional delays.”

Yet the partial constellation already in orbit is not harmless. ISW cautioned that even the limited daily windows afforded by the surviving March satellites:

“may allow Russian forces to conduct more precise strikes against Ukraine using remotely controlled unmanned systems.”

In other words, Moscow does not need a fully operational network to keep inflicting damage. A degraded, intermittent link is enough to sharpen targeting on glide bombs and long-range drones during the brief periods when connectivity holds.

The Launch Bottleneck

The deeper structural problem is one of launch capacity. Bureau 1440, the Russian aerospace enterprise building the Rassvet spacecraft, has announced plans for “dozens” of additional launches intended to place hundreds more units into orbit. Serhii Beskrestnov, then serving as an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, stated on 31 May that continuous, stable coverage would require at least 200 to 250 satellites in orbit, and that Moscow was unlikely to reach that threshold in the near term.

The arithmetic reinforces that scepticism. Russia’s reliance on the Soyuz-2.1b rocket — described in the ISW analysis as “a costly and scarce asset” — caps the programme’s tempo. Since 2022, the country has conducted only six to eight Soyuz-2.1b launches across all space and commercial missions combined. At that cadence, ISW calculated a theoretical ceiling of 128 Rassvet satellites over a four-year span, and only under the assumption that every launch succeeds and none are diverted to other payloads.

Ukraine Strikes the Launch Chain

Ukrainian forces have begun targeting the terrestrial infrastructure that underpins the programme. Overnight between 14 and 15 August, strikes hit the Progress Space Rocket Center, the facility responsible for producing Soyuz-type launch vehicles. A further attack was attempted against the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on 23 August. These operations suggest Kyiv views slowing the satellite pipeline as a legitimate way to blunt Russia’s ability to extend its precision-strike reach over Ukrainian cities.

The Human Cost Behind the Numbers

The stakes of satellite-guided precision are not abstract. Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has verified at least 16,874 civilian deaths and 51,173 injuries through the end of July. In a report published on 13 August, the mission identified July 2026 as the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since March 2022, with at least 437 killed and 2,610 injured. The surge was driven by intensified aerial bombardment, a sharp rise in glide-bomb attacks, and continued long-range missile and drone strikes on cities far removed from the front line. Monthly tallies also recorded successive records for short-range drone casualties near the contact zone in April and May.

Each additional satellite that reaches a stable orbit narrows the gap between a drone’s launch point and its target’s coordinates. Each launch vehicle destroyed on the pad widens that gap. The contest over who controls the link between sky and ground is now woven into every phase of this war, from the factory floor in Russia to the apartment blocks of Ukrainian cities.