French satellite operator Eutelsat has refused to stop Russia from using satellites it controls to broadcast state-run programming into the country. “One thing you’ve got to understand about satellites is the position—if it's an established position—it's like real estate. It matters an awful lot,” Phillipoff says.
If a satellite is positioned at 36° east, he says, that means tens of millions of satellite dishes are fixed on that location. “You can't just say, you know what? We're gonna move to, you know, 118°.” Recalibrating all of those satellite dishes could take months, if not years, and millions of dollars.
But Eutelsat has been cool to the idea of breaking up with Moscow. Speaking to Danish news outlet Radar early this month, Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke insisted that Eutelsat would remain “” She told Radar that the decision of whether or not to exclude the Russian television providers would be one left to the authorities.
In a statement to WIRED, Eutelsat reiterated that “commitment to neutrality.” With respect to any possible suspension for those Russian stations, the company iterated that it is “guided by sanctions and the decisions of its competent regulatory bodies.
Small Drones Are Giving Ukraine an Unprecedented EdgeBeyond signal jamming and Moscow’s usual roster of cyber and information operations tactics, they might not have a better way to retaliate without cutting off their own television networks. “I think they would try to make do with what they've got on 36C and let 36B go to, you know, the alternative media.”
“One thing you’ve got to understand about satellites is the position—if it's an established position—it's like real estate. It matters an awful lot,” Phillipoff says. If a satellite is positioned at 36° east, he says, that means tens of millions of satellite dishes are fixed on that location. “You can't just say, you know what? We're gonna move to, you know, 118°.” Recalibrating all of those satellite dishes could take months, if not years, and millions of dollars.
But Eutelsat has been cool to the idea of breaking up with Moscow.
Speaking to Danish news outlet Radar early this month, Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke insisted that Eutelsat would remain “” She told Radar that the decision of whether or not to exclude the Russian television providers would be one left to the authorities.
In a statement to WIRED, Eutelsat reiterated that “commitment to neutrality.” With respect to any possible suspension for those Russian stations, the company iterated that it is “guided by sanctions and the decisions of its competent regulatory bodies.” The company points to RT France, which it stopped transmitting after a March 1 regulatory decision.
“If the European authorities impose new sanctions against Russian channels, we will stop their broadcast,” the company said. It added: “At this stage, no regulator or other competent authority has asked us to stop broadcasting private Russian television channels in Russia.”
Phillipoff and Lange have been turning their appeal to politicians, but with minimal effect. “We sent letters to all French members of the European Parliament,” Lange says. “Not a single answer.”
How, exactly, Paris or Brussels might force Eutelsat to block those Russian channels is an open question. Lange and Phillipoff say that if the European Union can ban the English-language Sputnik and RT stations from their airwaves, sanctions should have the power to remove Russian-language TV from their satellites. In May, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the EU Parliament they would ban three new broadcasters “in whatever shape or form, be it on cable, via satellite, on the internet, or via smartphone apps.”has reported that those three broadcasters are Russian-language news networks that reach Europe, with some help from Eutelsat’s satellites.
Eutelsat told WIRED, “We are aware of the European Union's intention to sanction three Russian channels, two of which are broadcast on our satellites, and we are ready to immediately cease broadcasting them as soon as the corresponding European regulation is published.”
The United States recently slapped sanctions on three Russian-language TV stations, including NTV (the flagship station of provider NTV+), after concluding that they are “spreading disinformation to bolster Putin’s war.” Those sanctions are likely to have an impact on their foreign revenue, but not on their Russian operations.
Going after the satellites themselves would be a hugely disruptive escalation. Moscow and Kyiv are already taking aim at each others’ satellite communications.
Western intelligence agencies say, in the hours before its invasion, Russian hackers