Europe Scrambles for Starlink Alternative as Ukraine Faces Satellite Risks

European Union leaders are grappling with an urgent strategic challenge: reducing Ukraine’s dependence on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communications system after service disruptions raised concerns about Kyiv’s reliance on US-controlled technology for battlefield operations.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Europe had no immediate alternative to the satellite network, which has become essential to Ukraine’s military communications. She made the remarks ahead of a summit attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where European leaders discussed the continent’s defence capabilities and the need to address critical technological gaps.
“Starlink is really necessary for Ukraine and unfortunately in (the) short term Europe can't replace this capability,” Kallas said before the talks.
She added that the European Defence Agency had identified critical capabilities that Europe lacked and needed to develop, stressing that these gaps had to be addressed “as soon as possible”.
The issue gained urgency after Ukrainian officials reported restrictions and slower speeds on parts of the Starlink system during the week, amid growing tensions between Washington and Kyiv over Trump’s deal involving Russian diesel.
Trump has repeatedly urged Ukraine to refrain from attacking Russian refineries and announced a truce on attacks against energy infrastructure. However, Ukraine has continued to target Russian refineries.
Musk said any disruption was the responsibility of the US government rather than his company, SpaceX.
Ukraine uses Starshield, the military-grade satellite service, for battlefield communications, mid-range strikes on Russian-occupied territory and interceptor drones. It also uses Starlink’s civilian satellite network, but not for offensive operations.
European leaders have acknowledged that building an alternative to Starlink will take time, even as the latest disruptions have highlighted the need to strengthen the continent’s satellite communications capacity.
“Starlink is the key for Ukraine actually to fight or fight back,” Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs told reporters.
“It takes time for us to have the same capabilities. We do have, but not enough. So this is strategically something we have to discuss today.”
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said he had discussed the issue with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, focusing on how European countries could provide similar services in the near future.
British defence minister Wes Streeting also said he had raised the Starlink issue with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, on Thursday.
“It’s not yet clear to us in the UK what happened, why the service interruption occurred. But I am reassured, and was reassured directly by Secretary Hegseth, that the service has been restored,” Streeting told the BBC on Friday.
Ukrainian officials reported slower speeds on the system on Wednesday, affecting connectivity. Some Ukrainian officials suggested that Washington was behind the restrictions reported on certain Starlink internet terminals.
The disruption has also renewed investor interest in European satellite operators that could help reduce reliance on SpaceX.
Shares in Eutelsat, the French satellite operator that runs the OneWeb network, rose 12 per cent on Friday, taking its gains for the week to 23 per cent. Paris-listed SES, another European satellite operator, gained 6.7 per cent.
The gains followed a Reuters report citing two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter, which said an order to limit Starshield services in Ukraine had come from inside the White House.
Analysts said the developments had strengthened the case for European satellite operators as governments increasingly sought alternatives to US technology.
“The Starlink Ukrainian issue helped,” Oddo BHF analyst Stéphane Beyazian said of the share price movements, according to Reuters.
“But more generally, shares have been done so much due to the Starlink risk now investors are reconsidering them as the European industry will not disappear to Starlink,” he added.
Eutelsat operates OneWeb, a network of around 600 low-Earth orbit satellites that provides broadband connectivity to governments, airlines and telecommunications operators. Backed by the French and British governments, OneWeb is widely viewed as Europe’s leading challenger to Starlink, whose much larger satellite network dominates the global low-Earth orbit broadband market.
Eutelsat chief executive Jean-François Fallacher said in March that the company had sold its entire capacity in Ukraine. The company operates as a dual-use provider, with thousands of antennas active and devices capable of operating in environments affected by GPS jamming, Reuters reported.
However, analysts cautioned that European systems could not immediately match Starlink’s capabilities.
“We don't see (Europe's IRIS" satellite project) fully replicating Starlink's capabilities in the short term, although SES and Eutelsat can already provide complementary satellite connectivity,” ING analyst Jan Frederik Slijkerman said.
Starlink has played a central role in Ukraine’s war effort since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
In the early days of the invasion, Ukraine’s then deputy prime minister and digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, publicly appealed to Musk for connectivity. The first 500 Starlink terminals arrived in Ukraine two days later. Musk subsequently granted the Ukrainian government and military access to the network, initially free of charge.
The system has enabled secure communications between Ukrainian military units and supported command, control, intelligence and surveillance operations. Its connectivity has also been particularly important to Ukraine’s extensive use of drones.
However, the relationship has faced tensions over the years. In 2022, Musk refused a Ukrainian request to activate Starlink connectivity for a planned operation near Crimea, saying that doing so would make SpaceX explicitly complicit in a major act of war and risk escalating the conflict.
More recently, Musk said Starshield systems were owned and controlled by the US government, with decisions on restrictions ultimately resting with the US military and the US president.
The latest disruption has once again highlighted the strategic risks of Ukraine relying on a satellite network controlled by a private company whose military services are subject to US government decisions. For European leaders, the immediate challenge is to maintain Ukraine’s communications capabilities while developing alternative systems that can reduce dependence on Starlink.