Ukraine asks ITU to exclude its territory from Russia's Rassvet satellite coverage
Bureau 1440
Ukraine asked the ITU to bar Russia's Rassvet satellites from covering its territory in any frequency band.
what happened
Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coordinating with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, submitted a formal note to the International Telecommunication Union on Aug. 28 requesting that Ukraine's national territory be excluded from the declared coverage areas of Russia's Rassvet satellite system across all frequency bands, per Militarnyi and the Kyiv Post. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said "the purpose for Russia to use such satellites over the territory of Ukraine is absolutely clear and it has nothing to do with civilian purposes," per the Kyiv Post, and Ukrainian diplomats called on international partners to press for similar exclusions over their own territories. Rassvet, built by Bureau 1440 as Russia's domestic alternative to Starlink, has launched 32 satellites across two batches (March 23 and July 19) that pass over Ukraine four times daily and provide at least two windows of more than an hour of coverage each, per Militarnyi.
why it matters
The filing puts a formal ITU record behind Ukraine's objection to a Russian satellite system it says supports military use over its territory, giving Kyiv a documented basis to press allies for coordinated exclusions or action against Rassvet's frequency assignments as Bureau 1440 pushes the constellation toward commercial service.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Bureau 1440
- Category
- regulatory
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-08-28
- Published
- 2026-09-24 05:30 UTC