Key Elements
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry signed a letter of intent with Finland’s Nokia and satellite manufacturer ICEYE on Thursday to build sovereign defense and satellite communications capabilities, as Kyiv scrambles to reduce its dependence on SpaceX’s Starlink after unannounced service restrictions knocked fast-moving drones offline.
The agreement, announced during the Finnish prime minister’s visit to Ukraine, calls for exploring cooperation in space with an emphasis on a secure satellite communications system that Kyiv would own and control. Nokia said the two Finnish companies had separately disclosed earlier this month a joint push to develop secure, high-performance broadband satellite systems in low Earth orbit for governments, covering missions from defense and border security to emergency services and disaster response. Under that model, nations would hold ownership and control of the satellites, the ground segment and the terminals.
“Modern warfare has proven that reliable communications are a matter of national security,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement. “We must all rely on capabilities that we can control.” He thanked Finland for its backing and said the partnership would help build “Europe’s long-term security.”
ICEYE, which operates a synthetic aperture radar constellation in low Earth orbit with its U.S. subsidiary, already supplies imagery that Ukraine uses for intelligence gathering and operational planning. “Ukraine needs secure, sovereign and high-performance satellite communications systems that it controls,” CEO and co-founder Rafal Modrzewski said, adding that the company has backed Kyiv since 2022 and intends to keep doing so.
Restrictions Persist on Starlink
The deal follows Ukraine’s disclosure on Oct. 14 that access to Starlink and Starshield, the military variant of the network, had been curtailed without notice, severing links for drones and other aircraft flying faster than 100 miles per hour. Ukrainian officials said the limits were still in force as of Friday.
Zelenskyy has said connection speeds on Starlink, which Ukraine has used for some military tasks including defense against Russian missile strikes, were reduced. Both President Donald Trump and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk have denied responsibility. Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that he would call Musk to have the restrictions lifted. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
Members of Congress from both parties are pressing for a formal investigation into the unilateral service changes. Jay Shambaugh, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at George Washington University, said in an email that the episode fits “a pattern since Trump came back into office of the United States acting as an unreliable ally,” warning that over time it could shrink U.S. exports to the EU as countries balk at dependence on a supplier Washington can switch off.
Zelenskyy has also struck a separate partnership with Norway to jointly develop air defense and communications systems that could serve as a Starshield substitute.
A Crowded Field of Challengers
Competition to Starlink is building on several fronts. Amazon’s Leo, France’s Eutelsat and a forthcoming Blue Origin service called TeraWave, which has yet to launch its first satellites, are all in development. The European Union is assembling IRIS², a constellation of hundreds of satellites, though its first launches are not expected before 2029.
Europe’s largest carriers are weighing their own moves. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone are considering satellite mobile services to cut reliance on suppliers outside the EU and to challenge Starlink, the Financial Times reported.
Capital has followed the shift. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, venture and private equity investors have committed roughly $8 billion to Starlink and Starshield alternatives, according to research by Chad Anderson, chief executive of Space Capital. About $3.9 billion of that has gone to potential Starlink rivals, mainly China’s Spacesail and China SatNet.
Virginia Burger, a senior defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, said the core problem is that no drop-in replacement for Starlink yet exists, even as combat increasingly shifts toward unmanned systems and drone warfare that demand high-speed connectivity.
| Starlink alternative | Backer | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Leo | Amazon | In development |
| Eutelsat | France | Operating |
| TeraWave | Blue Origin | Pre-launch |
| IRIS² | European Union | First launches not before 2029 |
| Sovereign LEO system | Nokia, ICEYE, Ukraine MoD | Letter of intent signed |
Note: Status reflects the source material as of Oct. 23, 2026.
For investors, the letter of intent is a signal rather than a contract: it commits the parties to explore cooperation, not to procure hardware. Still, it places Nokia, a network equipment maker hunting for growth beyond terrestrial telecom, inside a defense procurement pipeline that European governments are likely to expand. ICEYE, a privately held Earth-observation specialist, gains a second revenue line alongside imagery sales.
The larger market question is whether sovereign constellations can scale fast enough to matter. With IRIS² years from orbit and no true substitute for Starlink available today, Ukraine’s drone fleet remains exposed in the near term, and the $8 billion flowing into alternatives has yet to produce a system that can be swapped in on the battlefield.
