Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Europe is rushing to provide Ukraine with alternatives to Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink broadband satellite network, after the US withdrew military aid and intelligence sharing from the country this week.\u00a0Four large satellite operators \u2014 Luxembourg\u2019s SES, Spain\u2019s Hisdesat, Viasat, owner of the UK\u2019s Inmarsat, and France\u2019s Eutelsat\/OneWeb \u2014 have all confirmed to the Financial Times that they are in talks with governments and EU institutions about how to provide back-up connectivity to Ukraine.\u00a0But replacing the ubiquitous laptop-sized devices that have become so crucial to Ukraine\u2019s defence against Russian aggression remains a tall order. More than 40,000 terminals are in operation across the military, hospitals, businesses and aid organisations, according to Ukraine\u2019s digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov.Miguel \u00c1ngel Garc\u00eda Primo, chief executive of Spain\u2019s secure government satellite services provider Hisdesat, said his company had been contacted by several European officials. \u201cWe are part of this initiative,\u201d he said.Last week\u2019s clash in the Oval Office between Donald Trump and Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelenskyy had prompted \u201cimmediate discussions about whether the EU could provide alternatives\u201d, he added.European leaders this week rallied behind Zelenskyy at a summit in Brussels where they also pledged to significantly increase their own defence capabilities. Ukraine\u2019s defence minister Rustem Umerov also talked to his German counterpart Boris Pistorius in Berlin, including on the effort to set up a European back-up to Starlink.Zelenskyy is set to begin talks with the US next week on ending the war, but concerns remain that access to Starlink could be used to pressure Kyiv into agreeing an unfavourable deal. Starlink\u2019s speed and reliability has made it an integral part of the way the war is fought in Ukraine. In command posts set up in basements and hide-outs, officers get a constant, real-time stream of footage used to direct artillery and drone strikes.Ukrainian forces also use Starlink because it is less vulnerable to Russian jamming devices, compared with traditional radio communications, said Pavlo Narozhny, a Ukrainian military expert.But the service has been patchy in recent months, particularly in areas close to the frontline. \u201cIt\u2019s been like that for a while now,\u201d said one drone operator\u00a0near\u00a0the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Pokrovsk, which Russian forces have been seeking to capture since last year.In the short term, a patchwork of European services operating from different orbits could be used as back-up \u2014 including for secure government communications and internet connectivity in cities, hospitals or energy plants. But it is \u201cvery difficult if not impossible for someone to deploy the same number of terminals Starlink already has because they have been accumulated over years\u201d, said Garc\u00eda Primo.\u00a0Lluc Palerm Serra, research director at space consultancy AnalysysMason, said: \u201cThere are alternatives but there are none that can offer the level of supply that Starlink has.\u201d Even if all of Europe\u2019s capacity over Ukraine were aggregated, it would still fall short of that provided by Starlink.Starlink is flying more than 7,000 satellites in low orbit at roughly 550km above sea level. The satellites travel so quickly over any given point on the Earth that there is constant access to signals from the ground, he said.The speed at which signals make the return journey from Earth to space and back is faster on Starlink devices than on rival services relying on fewer satellites travelling in higher orbits. Yet the difference may only be fractions of a second, so latency may only be an issue for certain applications.Luxembourg\u2019s SES\u00a0already provides services to Ukraine, said chief executive Adel Al-Saleh. However, he also confirmed that the company was \u201cinvolved in these conversations\u201d about boosting capacity to the country. While there had been discussions about an alternative for several months, recent events had \u201camplified\u201d the talks, he said.Viasat said it would be possible to address Ukraine\u2019s needs. \u201cSignificant\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009capacity exists from a variety of other sources,\u201d a Viasat spokesperson told the FT. \u201cEven more is coming on line shortly. We have the capacity and capabilities to assist and are very glad to do what we can to help address this critical security matter in the Ukraine and in Europe more broadly.\u201dLawmakers in the European parliament have increased pressure on the commission to speed up co-ordination efforts on existing technologies and bring forward a \u201cGovsatcom\u201d initiative \u2014 which will pool existing secure government satellite capacities but was only expected to become operational next year.\u201cWe are looking at how to best support Ukraine,\u201d a commission spokesperson said earlier this week. \u201cGovsatcom can address the immediate secure connectivity needs through pooled member states\u2019 satellite capacities.\u201d Separately, Maxar Technologies, the largest supplier of commercial satellite imagery to the US government, stopped its service to Ukraine this week. But Anders Linder, head of Maxar\u2019s international division, indicated that the company was open to a workaround, pointing out that \u201cany of our commercial customers, who are all US partners and allies, are able to use the data they purchase from us however they see fit. That includes sharing it with their allies,\u00a0such as Ukraine.\u201d\u00a0Many in Europe see the current crisis as justification for Europe\u2019s ambition to build its own multi-orbit broadband network in low Earth orbit, a project called Iris\u00b2. The \u20ac10.6bn project will not be operational until 2030, so cannot provide a short-term solution. However, it was giving added urgency to discussions around the type of platform and services required, said two people close to the programme.\u00a0\u201cEurope is rethinking everything that has to do with defence right now, so I won\u2019t be surprised if they review the scale of Iris\u00b2,\u201d said Serra.Additional reporting by Charles Clover in London, Natalia Sawka in Warsaw, Henry Foy in Brussels and Laura Pitel in Berlin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Europe is rushing to provide Ukraine with alternatives to Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink broadband satellite network, after the US withdrew military aid and intelligence sharing from the country this week.\u00a0Four large satellite operators \u2014 Luxembourg\u2019s SES, Spain\u2019s Hisdesat, Viasat, owner of the UK\u2019s Inmarsat, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-232652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}