MW Shares of Starlink's European rival Eutelsat have tripled. CEO says it can do the job in Ukraine.

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Eutelstat Communications CEO says 'months, not years,' are needed to get as many satellites into Ukraine as Elon Musk's Starlink has had there

Talks with European leaders to replace Elon Musk's Starlink satellite services in Ukraine have "intensified" over the past two weeks, according to the chief executive officer of French rival Eutelsat Communications.

"Until now, we have been together with Starlink there, but it's clear that everybody is asking us today, 'Can you actually replace especially the very large number of terminals that Starlink has across Ukraine?' And that's something we're looking very actively at," Eve Berneke, who heads the Paris-headquartered satellite operator, was quoted on Thursday as having told Bloomberg News.

Shares of Eutelsat (FR:ETL) (ETCMY) (UK:ETL) saw their biggest-ever one-day surge, 119%, on Tuesday, as European defense-related stocks rallied following Germany's announcement of a massive boost in spending to counter President Donald Trump's dramatic pause of military aid to Ukraine.

Shares began climbing Monday in the wake of a terse meeting late last week between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. The stock is up 229% to date in 2025.

"It is a key element of modern warfare to have strong communications capabilities from space," said Berneke.

Starlink, operated under Musk's SpaceX umbrella, has been present in Ukraine since the early days of the war, sending thousands of terminals as Russia knocked out its neighbor's fixed-line and mobile network. Versus Starlink's estimated 40,000 terminals there, Eutelsat has "a couple of thousand" currently in Ukraine, and not all of them are on the network, she said. "We're talking several tens of times of that if we were to replace all of the Starlink terminals."

From the archives (September 2023): Musk turned off Starlink system to frustrate Ukraine attack on Russian fleet, according to Isaacson book

Key Words (October 2022): Elon Musk suggests SpaceX can't afford to provide Starlink access for Ukraine much longer but might bear the cost anyway

Eutelsat has a "multitude of terminal suppliers," and some stock that they could quickly deploy to Ukraine and military and commercial grade, she said, adding that it would require financial and possibly logistical support. It doesn't manufacture its own terminals and would need to work with suppliers.

For now, she said, Eutelsat could get another 2,000 to Ukraine with stock on hand in the very short term. Matching Starlink's 40,000 would take "a couple of months, not years."

Berneke was also asked about talks with the Italian government, which Bloomberg reported Thursday had grown uneasy about closing a EUR1.5 billion, or $1.6 billion, deal with Starlink Italy amid the Trump administration's pullback from long-running U.S. security commitments to European allies.

"What we know today in the discussions with the Italian government is that it's very clear that the Italians have realized the need for low-earth constellations," Berneke said. "And they're evaluating the options for Italy."

For Italy, she said, it doesn't make sense to have its own constellation due to cost considerations. Eutelsat, she said, can help via its collaboration with IRIS(2), a multiorbit satellite internet constellation in the works for deployment by the EU in 2027.

-Barbara Kollmeyer

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March 06, 2025 12:20 ET (17:20 GMT)

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