French Eutelsat will not be able to provide communications in Ukraine instead of Starlink

The French operator Eutelsat will not be able to fully provide Ukraine with communications if the American company Starlink refuses such work. Eva Berneke, CEO of Eutelsat, informed Politico about this on April 7.

"If we had to take over the entire communication capacity for Ukraine and all its citizens, we would not be able to do this. Let's be honest," Berneke said.

She noted that the issue of Kiev's dependence on Starlink may be resolved at the White House level. At the same time, the CEO stressed the need to create a European alternative to ensure competition with the American company. According to her, negotiations are currently underway with the European Union (EU) to finance additional satellite launches, which should increase network capacity in the coming years.

Currently, there are about 40 thousand Starlink terminals operating in Ukraine, while Eutelsat employs about 2 thousand devices, and another 4 thousand are ready for installation.

The Economist magazine reported on March 4 that Ukraine is looking for a replacement for the Starlink satellite network systems in case the United States turns off access to it. At the same time, according to the publication, switching to another system will be problematic and will leave Ukrainian militants without high-quality communications on the battlefield.

On February 22, Reuters reported that the United States could disable access to Starlink in Ukraine. On the same day, the owner of this company, American billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk, accused the agency of lying because of the news about the shutdown of Starlink in Ukraine.