Crowdfunding satellite directs strategic destruction of Russian war machine through Ukraine

In August 2022, funds raised by the Serhiy Prytula Charitable Foundation, originally intended for the purchase of Bayraktar drones for use in the war against Russia, were used by Ukraine to acquire a high-tech satellite made by the Finnish company ICEYE, which served as a guide for much of Kyiv’s attacks on the Kremlin’s war machine.

A report on military news site War Zone (TWZ) on Wednesday reported details from Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency (HUR) of how it had used the spacecraft to attack Russian military facilities. On the official HUR website, the intelligence agency said the satellite had provided nearly 4,200 images taken over both Ukraine and Russia since it was acquired. More than a third of these have been used to attack Russian targets since 2022, it said.

The website uses satellite data to list the main facilities destroyed, including 370 airfields, 238 air defense and radio intelligence posts, 153 oil depots and fuel depots, 147 missile, aircraft and ammunition depots, and 17 naval bases, with a total value of several billion dollars.

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The ICEYE orbiter’s Synthetic Aperture Radar enabled Ukraine to identify Russian permanent deployment sites, training grounds, military towns and mobilization centers, and to detect Moscow’s personnel movements and assembly areas that enabled military action. Another advantage is that it could clearly detect enemy vehicles and equipment and identify them by type, even if they were camouflaged or located in forested areas.

It was HUR that dubbed the ICEYE equipment the “people’s satellite,” and it also enabled HUR to monitor the facilities of Russia’s military-industrial complex and its logistics network, including the Kerch Bridge. Subsequent overflights also made it possible to conduct damage assessments following Ukrainian attacks.

The post on the website expressed HUR’s “boundless gratitude to every citizen who joined the Serhiy Prytula Foundation’s charitable project” and said the satellite was “one of the best investments in Ukraine’s defense capability.”