Ukraine hits Russia's Starlink-style Rassvet project and 39 shadow fleet ships

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has enacted a National Security and Defense Council decision slapping sanctions on the Russian companies and people building the Rassvet satellite communications system, and on 39 vessels in Russia's shadow fleet. The Presidential Office announced the move on its website, according to Ukrinform.

The Rassvet package names 10 companies and 19 Russian nationals tied to them. Kyiv says Moscow wants a low-Earth-orbit network that would let it command troops and steer attack drones — Shaheds included — plus missiles in real time. In the Presidential Office's telling, a working Rassvet wouldn't just tighten Russia's grip on its weapons in Ukraine; it would threaten other countries too.

Among those sanctioned: 5S Group, which ships foreign industrial equipment into Russia and builds RMatic industrial computers. The Presidential Office says one of those machines went to a sanctioned maker of electronic warfare systems and Orlan drones, and was used in research and development for Bureau 1440. Also hit are Production Association Akvamash, a precision metal-machining outfit; L-Optics, which supplies optical, telecom and laser gear plus photonics and quantum communications systems; Elesar Group, a supplier of foreign electronic components; and Small Spacecraft, which works on space tech and ground-based satellite communications equipment.

Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the President's Commissioner for Sanctions Policy, framed the move as an attack on the supply chain before the project gets off the ground. He described Rassvet as Russia's bid to build its own low-Earth-orbit system for use against Ukraine and as a threat to the wider world, and said the project leans on foreign technology, equipment and components. Kyiv is calling on its partners to line their sanctions up with Ukraine's.

The second package goes after 39 maritime vessels flying a grab bag of flags: 17 Russian, three each from Barbados, Liberia, the Marshall Islands and Panama, two each from Hong Kong and Djibouti, and one apiece from the Bahamas, Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Palau and Sierra Leone. According to the Presidential Office, these ships move Russian crude, petroleum products and gas condensate — key revenue streams for the state budget that end up funding the war. Their cargo runs to ports in China, India, Egypt, Turkey and beyond. One of them, the Vasily Dinkov, made 15 shipments of roughly 726,000 tonnes of Russian crude in the first half of 2026.

Some of the vessels are already blacklisted by the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. Ukraine says it will hand its partners all the relevant information so sanctions line up across jurisdictions.