Russia is building a satellite network that could soon put all of Europe within its reach. The “Rassvet” satellite system is an extraordinary threat, first to Ukraine and then to the rest of Europe, Oleksandr Danyliuk, the head of the private European aerospace and defense technology company Destinus, said at the Warsaw Security Forum, according to Ukrinform.

Rassvet is Russia’s answer to Starlink, a low-orbit satellite network built by Bureau 1440 to give Moscow’s forces communications that no one else can switch off. European states must invest more quickly in cheap, effective, mass-produced systems to counter it.

“They will be able to navigate to any point in Europe without problems. This needs to be stopped,” said Danyluik, a former Ukrainian finance minister, said.

Cheap systems, made at scale

Danyliuk’s prescription is already being used on Ukraine’s front. Europe should invest in inexpensive, effective systems that can be mass-produced, he argues, the same approach Ukraine uses, and that Russia also turns against it.

“This gap needs to be filled as quickly as possible,” he said.

He urged allies not to overlook threats that might look secondary today, pointing to Rassvet as exactly that kind of slow-building danger.

Appearing strong is not enough to deter Russia, Danyliuk argued, because Moscow can gauge how ready European states actually are.

Ukraine races to catch up

Both sides are now scrambling to own the satellite link rather than rent it. Ukraine is building a satellite system of its own, similar to Starlink but beyond any single company’s control, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 4 October.

He argued Kyiv should be free to turn Starlink on Russian military targets, warning that China and other states will share comparable satellite technology with Moscow within months.

By Ukrainian estimates, Russia still needs five to eight years to complete Rassvet, which so far reaches Ukraine only in brief passes. That window is the time Danyliuk says Europe must use.

Ukraine is about to tell Washington exactly which Russian targets it wants punished under America's new sanctions law, the Associated Press reported. A senior Ukrainian diplomat said Kyiv will hand the Trump administration and Congress a wish list of companies, ships, and people this week—and at the top are the firms supplying parts for Russia's answer to Starlink.

The law requires Washington to act but lets the president waive the sanctions if he certifies that doing so serves US national interests, and the first choice falls due in weeks. For Ukraine, a measure that names no targets changes nothing on the ground—which is why the fight now is over whose names make the list before the clock runs out.

A list topped by Russia's Starlink clone

Denys Sienik, chargé d'affaires at Ukraine's embassy in Washington, said the priority is a group of Russian firms making components for Rassvet, Moscow's homegrown satellite network, which Russia hopes to complete by the end of the year—though its own officials have put the start of service in 2027. Bureau 1440, the firm building Rassvet, is not itself on US sanctions lists, but its parent company, ICS Holding, is under US blocking sanctions, according to Militarnyi. The suppliers feeding the network parts are not sanctioned, and those are the ones Kyiv wants added to the list.

Russia sped up the project after Ukraine and SpaceX cut off the Starlink terminals its troops had used without authorization at the front. If Russia completes the constellation, Sienik said, it could strike Ukraine at will with real-time information—a danger he warned would bite hardest this winter. "If these entities are not sanctioned, it will actually make this program possible for Russia and that will be a game-changer," he told reporters, Reuters reported. Kyiv wants access to Starlink inside Russia, too, so it can strike targets there.

Euromaidan Press has reported how such a network would change the battlefield: the satellites transmit in high-frequency bands that are hard to jam, and a relay overhead would feed drones and missiles fresh coordinates mid-flight, letting them fly low under air defenses that struggle to see them.

Oil tankers and attacks on US firms

Ukraine is pushing for tougher action against Russia's shadow fleet, too—the aging tankers that sell its oil around Western restrictions—and is asking the administration and American industry to publicly condemn Russian attacks on US companies' operations inside Ukraine, Sienik said.

The deadline Washington is now facing

The requests arrive as the administration faces an 18 October deadline to decide which Russian entities, if any, to sanction under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which US President Donald Trump signed into law on 18 September. The law directs the White House to impose tariffs on Russia's biggest oil buyers and to block its banks, officials, and tankers—but lets the president waive those measures, which is why Kyiv is lobbying for the toughest list it can get.