If you believe official Russian reports, the country’s northern space port has come under attack from drones on several occasions in the past few months.
The drones did not succeed in attacking the spaceport, but the attempted attack came as Russia increased activity at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome to deploy a new constellation of internet and data relay satellites similar to SpaceX’s Starlink, a space-based network that underpins Ukraine’s military communications infrastructure. Plesetsk is a military base located in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia, about 500 miles north of Moscow.
The Russian space agency’s first acknowledgment of the attempted drone attack in Plesetsk came a few weeks ago, when the head of Roscosmos, the Russian state corporation for civil space flight, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Bakanov gave Putin a list of Russia’s recent achievements in the space sector. The list was modest, at least by the standards of an established space power, with 17 launches in 2025, a third behind the United States and China.
“Serious Inward Effort”
Then the director general of Roscosmos told Putin about “perhaps the most exciting event” for Russia’s space program last year. It was the March 23 launch of the first batch of communications satellites for Russia’s own version of Starlink. This network, called Rassvet, is being developed by a company called Bureau 1440, which has been supported by the Russian government with more than $1.2 billion. The network’s first 16 operational satellites were launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Soyuz-2.1B rocket.
Bakanov claimed in an April 11 meeting with Putin, “Our ‘friends’ made every possible effort to prevent this launch.” “That day we had serious attempts to get to the cosmodrome, but nevertheless, the joint combat crew of Roscosmos and the Space Forces accomplished its mission.
The administration of the city of Mirny, the nearest city to Plesetsk, warned on an official social media account of a “drone threat” in the area between March 22 and 25. Local citizens responding to the warning suggested that internet connections had been cut in the city. City officials said the “temporary restrictions” on mobile internet service were “necessary due to security measures aimed at protecting citizens and critical infrastructure.”
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