Even if you’ve never used the service, you’re probably familiar with Starlink, a global Internet service provider that relies on an array of satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO). SpaceX launched the first Starlink satellites in 2019, and more than 9,000 of them have since joined the initial five dozen. Starlink plans to have an eventual fleet of more than 40,000, but Russia seems willing to take some of them out of commission before that happens.
In late December of 2025, the Associated Press reported that “two NATO-nation intelligence services suspected that Russia was developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite.” The unidentified services said Russia would not target the satellites individually or with electromagnetic pulse devices but would instead use a “zone-effect” weapon consisting of a cloud of dense pellets. While unsourced reports should be taken lightly, Ukraine’s reliance on Starlink since Russia invaded in 2022 could be due to possible Russian interest in taking out Starlink satellites. While anti-satellite weapons are not new, they present a significant risk in the form of extensive debris fields that could threaten other satellites.
A “zone effect” weapon as mentioned is similar to firing a shotgun blast at satellites, with one major difference. As long as shotgun pellets are limited by physics and gravity to a few seconds of flight, debris will keep zipping around in space until it hits something or is captured by Earth’s gravitational field. “I would be very surprised if they did,” the AP quoted Victoria Samson, a defense expert at the Secure World Foundation, as saying. Brigadier General Christopher Horner — who commands the Canadian military’s space division — wasn’t so sure. After confirming that his intelligence services had found no evidence of such a weapon, he added the warning that “it is not inconceivable.”
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Russia may just be having fun
A stack of 60 Starlink test satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket – Starlink Mission/Wikimedia Commons
Starlink satellites travel at 27,000 km/h (about 17,000 mph) and orbit 550 km (341.75 miles) above Earth. Hitting even a small object at that speed can cause catastrophic damage to a satellite’s delicate structures and equipment, and Starlinks aren’t the only ones in low-Earth orbit.
NASA defines low-Earth orbit as below 1,200 miles, noting that the International Space Station occupies this level of space and that it plans to expand access “to include government agencies, commercial providers, academic institutions, and potentially more.”
Deploying a “zone-effect” weapon like the one described in the Associated Press reporting would certainly cause indiscriminate damage to these satellites. The potential risks would be obvious to any rogue state on the planet, and Russia certainly has scientists who understand them. Even if Russia never planned to develop or use such a device, it is possible that the story was fabricated and leaked to prevent operational support of Starlink for Ukraine. Starlink also provided Internet service after the US military operation in Venezuela, although only until February 3.
Area-effect weapons are relatively low-tech, and Russia has a dedicated space launch agency with the ability to deploy several capable anti-satellite weapons. Among the world’s most powerful military air defense systems is Russia’s S-500 Prometheus, which can launch satellites at close range in low-Earth orbit. The S-500 was engineered as a defensive weapon, but it’s not a huge leap in logic to imagine it being used in a “zone effect” or other attack on Starlink satellites.
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