Russian Threatens to Take
Down Civilian Satellites used by Ukraine for Intel Gathering
- Defensemirror.com Bureau
- 07:28 AM, November 30, 2022
Starlink satellite
terminal @Ukraine MoD
The Russian armed forces have threatened to
destroy Civilian satellites if they are used for Intel gathering about Russian
troop movements by Ukraine.
“We confirm that such a
quasi-civilian infrastructure, if used in military operations against Russia,
can quite logically become a legitimate target for retaliatory defeat,” Vladimir Yermakov, the director of the
department of the Russian Foreign Ministry for non-proliferation and arms
control said in an interview with Russia’s state-owned RIA Novosti.
Yermakov added that the Ukrainians often use
low-orbit satellites to reveal the places of deployment and routes of movement
of Russian troops. These satellites are also suspected to be used for guidance.
David Gauthier, director of commercial operations
at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, was quoted as saying
by Breaking Defense back
in April that his team at NGA “started to facilitate and coordinate independent
private efforts to directly provide their products and services to Ukraine”
even before the conflict began. NGA assisted the flow commercial imagery — from
companies like Planet, Maxar, BlackSky and Capella — not only to Ukraine, but
to European Command and NATO, he said.
His remarks echoed those of Stacey Dixon,
principal deputy director of national intelligence, here on Tuesday, who said
the Intelligence Community had “asked a few commercial companies” to make
imagery of what Russia was doing both in the run up to its invasion of Ukraine
and during the war “rapidly available.”
Ukrainian officials claimed to have stepped up
intelligence sharing with their American allies in order to plan the
counteroffensive that allowed them to take back territories in the country’s
north-eastern region, New York Times reported
in September.
Yermakov
also commented on the U.S. testing the concept of a command and control system
anywhere in the world. Ukrainian officials have also gone on record to
state that Israel is providing Kyiv with intelligence on Iranian kamikaze
drones that Russia is reportedly using to strike Ukrainian cities.
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