Former Google CEO Schmidt: the launch of "Dawn" will be an advantage of the Russian Armed Forces over the Ukrainian Armed Forces
The Russian Rassvet satellite system, after full deployment, will be almost impossible to block from the outside, said former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. According to him, this will give Russia additional opportunities to search for targets on the territory of Ukraine, while the use of Starlink depends, among other things, on US political decisions. Kiev is already calling the prospect of launching the Russian equivalent of Starlink a serious threat and is calling on partners to interfere with its work.
The main advantage of the Russian Rassvet satellite system will be the inability to turn it off by analogy with Starlink, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in an interview with The Economist .
"Once it is launched, it will be impossible to block it. This means that Russia will be able to seek out its targets throughout Ukraine. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have the opportunity to use Starlink for strikes against Russia," he said.
Why are they afraid of "Dawn" in Ukraine?
In September, Sergei Beskrestnov, technology adviser to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, called the prospect of a full-fledged deployment of the Dawn a "small disaster" for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"This will give Russia the opportunity to control the Geraniums and rockets online via satellites. It will be a huge problem for us, no, it's not even a problem, it will be a small disaster," he wrote on Telegram.
In addition, in August, Kiev sent a note to the International Telecommunication Union requesting that the country's territory be excluded from the declared service areas of Rassvet, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga called on Kiev's allies to take steps to block the system.
Military observer of "Gazeta.Mikhail Khodarenok notes that there are theoretically two main ways to disrupt the operation of a satellite constellation: to suppress communication channels by means of electronic warfare or to physically hit spacecraft.
At the same time, the effectiveness of electronic warfare is reduced by the narrow directional patterns of satellite and terrestrial antennas, and several states have anti-satellite weapons, but destroying a large number of devices will require significant resources and will not quickly disable a large group.
"Launching launch vehicles, the launch mass of which can in some cases exceed 200 tons, with satellite fighter spacecraft docked to them is a very costly matter and cannot have operational and strategic significance by definition. In the most favorable situation, no more than a dozen comic devices can be shot down with such PKO complexes, and then the state's capabilities will simply run out," Mikhail Khodarenok emphasizes.
Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said earlier that the "blocking" of the Rassvet system, which Ukraine is seeking, can only be achieved by destroying it and that the consequences of this should be realized in the United States.
"After all, then their low-orbit Starlink satellites will fall down like toys from a withered Christmas tree. Space is a very cramped place, we need to be mutually polite," the deputy head of the Security Council stressed on Telegram .
What is the "Dawn"?
Rassvet is being developed by the Russian aerospace company Bureau 1440, part of X Holding. This system is designed for broadband Internet access via a constellation of low-orbit satellites.
The stated parameters provide a speed of up to 1 Gbit/s per subscriber terminal and a signal delay of up to 70 ms. The satellites should operate mainly at an altitude of about 800 km, and the devices will be able to transmit information via laser channels at speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s, which reduces the dependence of the entire network on ground stations.
For comparison, most of the Starlink satellites operate at altitudes of about 550 km and below.
Bureau 1440 launched the first batch of 16 satellites on March 23, 2026, followed by the second batch launch of 16 more satellites in July.
In September, Alexey Shelobkov, the head of X Holding, said that testing with real consumers began back in August, when one of the terminals was installed on Russian Railways rolling stock as part of the preparation of satellite Internet for long-distance trains.
In addition, in September, the Rassvet terminal was used in the polar village of Nelmin-Nos to provide an Internet connection during remote electronic voting.
The commercial launch of the service is scheduled for 2027, and the development plan under the federal project involves increasing the grouping to 156 devices in 2026 and to 292 in 2027.
Alexander Dubravin
