Can Commercial Satellites Be Military Targets? Starlink, Ukraine and the Law of War

Can commercial satellites be military targets? Since 2022 the question has stopped being academic. Starlink terminals carry Ukrainian military traffic, a cyberattack on a commercial satellite network opened Russia’s full-scale invasion, and Russian officials have said at the UN that Western commercial satellites could be struck.

This explainer sets out the law on commercial satellites as military targets, where it is unsettled, and what it means for operators. It builds on our guide to anti-satellite weapons and international law, which covers the rules on force and weapons tests in more depth.

The short answer

Yes, in some circumstances, and no, not simply because they help one side. The law of armed conflict does not have a special category for satellites. It asks the same questions it asks of a bridge, a power station or a telecoms mast: is this object being used in a way that makes it a military objective, and if so, would attacking it cause excessive harm to civilians?

Space adds two layers. The Outer Space Treaty applies international law, including the UN Charter, to activities in space, and it makes States responsible for what their companies do there. Our Outer Space Treaty explainer covers those articles.

What Russia said, and why it mattered

On 26 October 2022, at a UN First Committee meeting, Konstantin Vorontsov of Russia’s foreign ministry spoke about Western commercial satellites supporting Ukraine. Reuters reported him as saying, in comments quoted by TASS, that “quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike”.

At a joint meeting of the First and Fourth Committees the next day, the official UN summary record has Vorontsov saying that NATO “had been openly using civilian outer space infrastructure for military objectives in areas of armed conflict” and that “private commercial systems were also being used to support hostilities, including for intelligence gathering”. The White House spokesman John Kirby responded that any attack on US infrastructure would be met with a response.

The statement is partly right and partly wrong as a matter of law. It is right that civilian objects can lose protection through military use. It is wrong if it means that any satellite helping Ukraine is fair game, and the word “retaliatory” has no place in the targeting rules at all. Reprisals against civilian objects are heavily restricted, and retaliation is not a ground for making something a military objective.

The legal test: what makes a satellite a military objective

The core rule is in Article 52 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. Civilian objects must not be attacked. Military objectives are limited to objects “which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”

The test is about use, not ownership. A commercial imaging satellite tasked to find artillery positions, or a broadband constellation carrying drone control links, can meet the “use” limb even though a company owns it. A weather satellite serving farmers does not become a target because it is American.

Both limbs must be met at the time of the attack. “Definite military advantage” means something concrete in the circumstances, not a general hope that the enemy will be weakened.

Where there is doubt whether an object normally used for civilian purposes is making an effective contribution to military action, Article 52 says it is to be presumed not to be.

The ICRC’s position paper on weapons in outer space, submitted to the UN Secretary-General under General Assembly resolution 75/36, applies this directly. Civilian space systems, it says, “may also be used by the military, which could make them military objectives in specific circumstances.” It confirms that international humanitarian law applies to military operations in outer space, and points to Article III of the Outer Space Treaty in support.

Russia is a party to Additional Protocol I. The United States signed it in 1977 but has never ratified it, though the basic rule on military objectives is widely treated as customary law binding on all States.

Even a lawful target has limits

Meeting the definition is only the first step. Article 51 of the same Protocol prohibits indiscriminate attacks, including attacks expected to cause incidental civilian harm that would be excessive compared with the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Attackers must also take feasible precautions to avoid or minimise civilian harm.

This is where satellites differ from most targets. A single broadband or navigation satellite may serve hospitals, banks, ships and emergency services across several countries at once. The ICRC says that “all foreseeable direct and indirect incidental harm or damage to civilian objects must be considered, including when targeting a dual-use space object.”

Debris adds a further layer. A kinetic strike can scatter fragments that threaten other satellites, including those of neutral States, for years. That harm is foreseeable, and in my view it weighs heavily against destructive attacks in crowded orbits. Jamming, cyber operations or strikes on ground stations may be easier to justify on proportionality, though they raise their own legal problems, which our piece on satellite jamming law sets out.

What the Ukraine war has shown in practice

The first attack on a commercial satellite network in this war was not a missile. On 24 February 2022, about an hour before the invasion, a cyberattack hit Viasat’s KA-SAT network. The UK government announced on 10 May 2022, with the EU, the US and other allies, that Russia was behind it. The UK said the attack caused outages for several thousand Ukrainian customers and disrupted wind farms and internet users in central Europe. That is the proportionality problem in miniature: a network serving a military user, and collateral effects far from the battlefield.

Starlink is the second case. SpaceX began supplying terminals to Ukraine in 2022, and on 1 June 2023 the Pentagon confirmed that it “contracts with Starlink” for satellite communications services for Ukraine. A government contract for military communications strengthens the argument that the service, as used by Ukraine’s forces, contributes to military action.

The picture then grew more complicated. Russian forces were reported to be using Starlink terminals on attack drones. On 2 February 2026 Ukraine’s government approved a whitelist of verified terminals, which Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said would be run “in cooperation with SpaceX”, with unverified devices disconnected, as the Kyiv Independent reported. A private company was, in effect, deciding which side’s terminals could connect.

Who answers for the company?

Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty says States bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, “whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities”, and must authorise and continuously supervise them. So SpaceX’s conduct in Ukraine is, for treaty purposes, a US national activity. That does not make SpaceX a combatant or turn every Starlink satellite into a US military asset. It does mean the United States cannot disclaim what its licensee does.

The older law of neutrality adds a further wrinkle. Article 8 of the 1907 Hague Convention V says a neutral Power is not required to stop belligerents using “wireless telegraphy apparatus” belonging to it or to private companies. Article 9 says any restriction it does impose must be applied impartially to both belligerents, and that the neutral must see the same obligation observed by companies owning such apparatus. Whether a 1907 treaty on telegraphy maps onto satellite broadband, and whether the United States counts as neutral while supplying Ukraine, are both contested. My reading is that the impartiality rule at least explains why choices about who may connect are not purely commercial.

Liability for the satellites themselves is a separate question. The Liability Convention deals with damage caused by space objects, and in my view it fits awkwardly with deliberate attacks in wartime, which are governed mainly by the law on the use of force and the law of armed conflict.

What this means for operators

For operators with defence customers, three practical points follow. Your contracts should deal with suspension of service, geographic limits and government instructions in wartime, because the State that licenses you will be answerable for your choices. Your network design should separate military and civilian traffic where that is feasible, because separation helps the proportionality case for everyone else. And your insurance should be read for war and hostile-act exclusions before a conflict, not after one.

What I would watch

The first is State practice. Statements like Russia’s in 2022 are evidence of how States read the law, and so are replies to them. Any formal US or European position on when commercial satellites may be targeted would carry weight.

The second is how operators and governments structure military use. The more contracts look like the 2023 Pentagon deal, the stronger the case that the service contributes to military action. The more traffic is segregated, the stronger the case for protecting the rest.

The third is the UN process on space threats. The 2022 debate took place alongside an open-ended working group on reducing space threats set up under General Assembly resolution 76/231. Agreed language on when commercial satellites lose protection would do more for operators than any number of national statements.

Anuj KumarEditor-in-Chief

Anuj Kumar is the founder of Legal Desire Media and publishes Fashion Law Journal and Space Law Journal.

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