The Russian Starlink and the party-loving engineer who looks after it

The faces of the Russian generals are now familiar; they appear at meetings with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and are shown whenever there is an appointment, whenever a decision is ostensibly taken in a transparent manner. These are men who have risen through the ranks of the army; they have built their careers, fought, watched on, or given orders during every war waged by the Kremlin, and today they are the target of those who complain about the course of the war, of those who see the mistakes Moscow is making on the battlefield in Ukraine. They are the uniformed symbol of Putinism, which seems to remain static, always true to itself. This is the case as long as they are in uniform, but there is a second and third tier of men working for the war against Ukraine; they share Vladimir Putin’s plans, wear neither insignia nor uniforms, and do not even belong to the category of oligarchs – the super-rich immobilised by Putin. They do not go about carrying a briefcase; they prefer loose-fitting shirts to a full uniform, and they can be very dangerous because they work to provide Moscow with the technological tools to compete with all the cutting-edge projects at Ukraine’s disposal. 

Last Monday, Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, said that Russia is accelerating its plans to roll out its own Starlink-style project, known as Rassvet: “They have started launching it at a significantly faster pace than envisaged in their plans.” Back in March, Russia had begun to unveil Rassvet, discussed the first satellite launch and set 2035 as the target date for the project’s completion. Nine years is an eternity in war; technological revolutions can occur in that time. For this reason, before setting about building its own Starlink, Moscow had started stealing the technology from the Ukrainians. The solution to this practice was found by Kyiv’s former Defence Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had contacted Elon Musk – founder of the project and head of SpaceX – directly and explained that the Russians were using his terminals illegally, without paying. Musk decided to shut down the terminals being used by Moscow, and for Ukraine this brought immediate relief, particularly regarding drone operations targeting civilians. Russia’s first and most immediate response was an attempt to force Ukrainian citizens to hand over their Starlink access codes. Kyiv reacted with a wide-ranging awareness and information campaign, and the damage was kept to a minimum.

In March, Russia launched its first sixteen satellites into low Earth orbit and named its satellite constellation: Rassvet, which means ‘dawn’ and is pronounced rasviét. Now, Skabitsky has warned, Moscow plans to build its first complete constellation of 292 satellites by 2027 and to expand it to 924 satellites by 2035: a mini-Starlink.

There are no uniforms at Rassvet, but there are sweatshirts and loose-fitting shirts worn inside the offices of a private Russian aerospace company called Bureau 1440. The boss is Alexei Shelobkov, a Moscow-based engineer and entrepreneur, and the founder of Yadro, Russia’s largest manufacturer of, amongst other things, data storage systems. Now Biuro 1440 is the new flagship project; it is state-funded and is making rapid progress towards equipping Russia with its own satellite network, albeit on a smaller scale than Starlink. Shelobkov is a world away from generals and their uniforms; he worked for fifteen years with Western multinationals, and is a regular on the Moscow nightlife scene as well as a financier of it; his name appeared among the owners of Mutabor, a nightclub famous above all for hosting the ‘Golaja vecherinka’, the nudist party attended by actors, influencers and singers in December 2023, who found themselves having to apologise in tears for taking part in and organising such a scandalous evening. The venue was closed down and then reopened under a new name. Despite being far removed from military insignia and the front line, it is part of the same project: what worries Kyiv is the military use of Rassvet.