MOSCOW, Nov 6 (Reuters) – Experts on Russia’s Security Council have said that Western satellite communications services such as Starlink and OneWeb could be used to destabilise the socio-political situation in sovereign countries and therefore pose a risk, Russia’s state RIA news agency reported on Friday.
The statement followed a gathering of the body’s presidium of the Scientific and Expert Council where they discussed information security issues and the use of Russia’s own low-Earth orbit satellite system and internet access, RIA reported.
“During the meeting, the main risks and threats posed by the use of Western space-based communications systems over the territory of sovereign states to destabilise the socio-political situation were highlighted. This applies, first and foremost, to the widely used satellite communications services Starlink and OneWeb, which are actively expanding in countries interested in the accelerated digitalisation of their national economies,” RIA cited a Security Council statement as saying.
President Vladimir Putin last month hailed Elon Musk as a genius, acknowledging Russia is only beginning to roll out its answer to his Starlink satellite internet system.
Putin’s statement was all the more striking because a version of Starlink, developed by Musk’s SpaceX, has been used by Ukraine’s military throughout the war with Russia as a key component of drone operations and battlefield communications.
Russian Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev told Putin at the time that Russia has so far launched more than 30 satellites of its own as it builds its homegrown equivalent to Starlink, which is called Rassvet (Dawn).
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn )
