Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Nuvendil]

SecondWar said:

shavenferret said:

Russia is building its own Starlink system

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/s/fl7WVWD2Zt


But all is not lost. Russia also isn’t adding to this system at all fast pace. The system itself won’t be like Starlink, but perhaps a worse version of that even when they have more satellites in place. They won’t be able run a battlefield management system for another year or two because internet on that scale won’t be available . Also, you would think that Ukrainian intelligence will be able to find the rockets that are meant for the launch and use drones against them.

In the meantime, Russia will cont to incur heavy losses.

I would presume try would try to launch them at a place out of range of Ukrainian attacks, but obviously Ukraine will work on extending their range. Also they will likely try to target areas where the rockets and satellites are being assembled.

But does Russia even have the resources spare to devote to something like that?

Russia launches their rockets at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Kazakhstan and the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast in Russia's far east.  Both launch sites are very, vary far outside Ukraine's strike capabilities unfortunately.

As for whether they have the resources for this, I would say probably not.  What makes Starlink and all recent efforts at space industrialization and large scale space infrastructure build out possible is reusable rockets like Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and the recently introduced New Glenn. 

But while the West has those mentioned plus Starship, Neutron, and others coming online in the relative near future, Russia only has single use medium and heavy lift rockets.  They're good at building them at a reasonable price, but the efficiency gains and savingd from reusability cannot be replicated with single use rockets at medium lift and larger.  

So this is likely to be an exceedingly expensive and potentially wasted effort altogether.

Last edited by Nuvendil - on 17 April 2026