Russia reportedly building ‘anti-satellite weapon’ to target Elon Musk's Starlink network

Russia is believed to be developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink network. According to intelligence services from two NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) nations. The suspected aim is to weaken Western dominance in space, which has reportedly helped Ukraine in its war with Russia. The so-called “zone effect” weapon would attempt to fill Starlink’s orbital paths with hundreds of thousands of dense pellets. It could disable several satellites at the same time, while also creating a serious risk to other systems operating in orbit.

Russia views Starlink in particular as a grave threat, the findings indicate. The thousands of low-orbiting satellites have been pivotal for Ukraine’s survival against Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year.

Starlink’s high-speed internet service is used by Ukrainian forces for battlefield communications, weapons targeting and other roles and by civilians and government officials where Russian strikes have affected communications.

Analysts, however who haven’t seen the findings, say they doubt such a weapon could work without causing uncontrollable chaos in space for companies and countries, including Russia and its ally China, that rely on thousands of orbiting satellites for communications, defense and other vital needs.

Such repercussions, including risks to its own space systems, could steer Moscow away from deploying or using such a weapon, analysts said.

Russia has previously called for United Nations efforts to stop the orbital deployment of weapons and President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear space weapons.