Putin was asked twice about domestic Starlink analogues. The president claims Russia already has such systems. The military says it does not

Putin was asked twice about domestic Starlink analogues. The president claims Russia already has such systems. The military says it does not

Vladimir Putin held a meeting in the Kremlin with participants in the war in Ukraine and invited them to ask questions. He was asked about domestic Starlink analogues for controlling heavy drones, so that uniforms could be delivered to the front line.

Putin replied that Russia’s first satellites had already appeared in 2023 and that this work is being carried out by the company Bureau 1440. “We are expanding the low-orbit constellation,” the president said, noting that the Russian analogue is “in no way inferior” to Starlink and “may even surpass it in some respects.”

Twenty minutes later, another participant in the meeting said that “enemy drones fly under the control of the Starlink satellite communications system, while we do not have such a system,” and asked the president to instruct industry to find a solution to this issue.

“I already said: we have such a system. It has appeared, it is being introduced, the issue is scaling it up,” Putin replied, adding that there had recently been another launch during which 16 spacecraft were put into orbit, “but this is not enough.”

At the end of March, Bureau 1440 announced that the first serial 16 satellites of the Rassvet communications orbital constellation had been put into orbit. In early June, Kommersant wrote that one of the 16 satellites had been lost.

@meduzalive