An unnamed Ukrainian military source told The Atlantic’s Graham Wood that he believed Russian cruise missile strikes on Ukraine were being directed using satellite imagery provided by American companies. According to the source, the sequence is clear: the satellite takes pictures of the place, and in a few days or weeks the rocket arrives. Sometimes another satellite gets additional images later, perhaps to check the extent of the damage.

“The number of cases where the acquisition of the image is accompanied by shocks is too great for it to be a coincidence,” the source said.

Companies have an archive of ordered photos, with dates and coordinates. You can view tens of thousands of photos of the territory of Ukraine and notice patterns. For example, in the week leading up to April 2, 2022, about a month after the start of a full-scale Russian invasion, US companies requested images of a remote airfield near Myrhorod at least nine times. On April 2, rockets hit there. The following week, someone again requested a picture of the airfield. Satellite photography also preceded the strikes on Lviv – before March 26, 2022, someone instructed the satellite to inspect the armored vehicles that were struck. At the end of January 2024, someone commissioned a commercial satellite company to take fresh pictures of Kyiv, just before the city came under rocket fire. According to the journalist, there are hundreds of similar cases.

“Just six months ago, we could not have imagined that private companies would sell satellite images of sensitive areas,” said an unnamed Ukrainian military official. It became hard to believe that these coincidences were accidental. At the same time, the capabilities of Russian satellites are limited, and so are the Ukrainians.

The Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Kateryna Chornogorenko, confirmed to the journalist that the US satellite companies supported Ukraine. But he also says that Ukrainian Defense Ministry experts suspect that Russia is buying satellite images through third-party intermediaries who do business with Western satellite companies.

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