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The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is considering restrictions on satellite imagery over the country after it became known that the Russian Federation is likely buying satellite imagery through third countries for strikes on Ukraine. However, implementing such restrictions will not be easy, since the country’s airspace does not extend to space. The ex-platoon commander of the “Aidar” battalion, Evgeniy Dikiy, said this on FREEDOM.
He emphasized that Russia’s purchase of satellite images from third countries is an illustration of its actual technical capabilities in space.
“If I understand correctly: the fact that Russia is buying commercially available satellite images of our territory is, in general, no longer an assumption. This, as far as I understand, has already been proven, it is even partially known where and from whom they buy. And it’s logical that they do this… Russia has its own satellite constellation. They, in theory, should be completely self-sufficient in this matter. But this is in theory: it works for them in the same way as everything that the Russians themselves did. That is, if the efficiency is 30%, then this is still good. Therefore, it turns out that ordinary commercial services now provide better satellite information than the defense satellites of the Russian Federation launched at a cost of billions,” commented Dikiy.
According to him, commercial satellite images have quality limitations, but there are no such restrictions for military satellites.
“And the Russians, it turns out, their specially trained military satellites are inferior to banal, ordinary, peaceful, commercial ones,” he noted.
At the same time, the guest of the broadcast believes that Ukraine has few opportunities to influence Russia’s purchase of photographs.
“How do we prohibit filming of our territory? We can simply make a request not to do this. These satellites do not fly in our airspace, but very high above us… All we can do is try to reach out to these Western companies, ask them not to sell pictures to the Russians. But I’m afraid that it will not be the Russians themselves who come to them for photographs, but will buy through third, fourth and fifth hands, through intermediaries from very civilized Western countries. I think that we just have to come to terms with this reality,” said Evgeniy Dikiy.
Let us recall that earlier The Atlantic, citing a Ukrainian military source, reported that Russia could use satellite images provided by private companies from the United States to launch cruise missile attacks on Ukraine. In a comment to Suspilny, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Kirill Budanov, noted that commercial photographs are used by many countries, in particular both Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
