Ukraine Is Building Its Own Starlink With Nokia and ICEYE: How It Would Work

Ukraine has signed a letter of intent with Finnish companies Nokia and ICEYE to develop its own satellite communications system — a sovereign alternative to Starlink that Kyiv would fully control. The deal, signed on October 22 during Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's visit to Kyiv, is Ukraine's most concrete step yet toward ending its dependence on Elon Musk's network for battlefield communications.

What the deal actually covers

The agreement is a first step, not a finished contract: the parties have agreed to explore cooperation on a dedicated, secure satellite communications system for Ukraine's needs, with no timelines or funding figures disclosed yet. But the ambition is explicit. "Ukraine needs secure, sovereign and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls," ICEYE CEO Rafal Modrzewski said in a press release, according to the Kyiv Independent. Nokia Defense chief Mikko Hautala added that satellite networks safeguard communications when ground infrastructure is damaged — giving Ukraine control over the connectivity it depends on.

How it would differ from Starlink

The technical concept mirrors Starlink: a broadband network in low Earth orbit. The difference is ownership. Under the ICEYE-Nokia model announced earlier this month, the contracting government would independently own and manage every component — the satellites, the ground equipment and the communication terminals. For Ukraine, that means frontline units could not lose access to mission-critical links because of decisions made in another country. The system is also envisioned beyond the military: border protection, emergency services and disaster response, RBC-Ukraine reports.

Why now: the Starlink speed-cap crisis

The timing is no accident. Since the night of October 14, terminals on Ukrainian drones could only hold a connection at speeds up to about 160 km/h, disrupting drone missions and air-defense coordination — a crisis detailed in the report on who ordered the Starlink slowdown. President Trump said on October 21 that he had called Elon Musk and that full speed was restored, but Ukrainian officials told reporters on October 23 that frontline terminals still face the cutoff — and nobody has publicly taken responsibility for ordering it. That uncertainty is exactly what a sovereign system is designed to eliminate.

ICEYE brings serious space credentials: it operates the world's largest constellation of small synthetic-aperture-radar satellites, which image the Earth day and night in all weather, and it has cooperated with Ukraine since 2022. Whether a letter of intent becomes an orbiting network will take years and enormous funding — but as Ukraine's strikes on Russian data centers show, Kyiv is thinking about the war's infrastructure in the long term. Owning the sky above the battlefield, not just renting it, is the logical next step.