Ukraine official confirms urgent request for Western satellite data

Enlarge / A Maxar satellite image shows the buildup of Russian vehicles and helicopers on an airfield in Belarus prior to the invasion of Ukraine. (credit: Maxar Technologies)

Update, 10 am EST, 3/1/2022: On Tuesday, Mykhailo Fedorov, the vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, confirmed that his country is seeking the cooperation of commercial satellite operators. The goal is to obtain data, particularly from synthetic aperture radar, about the movement of Russian vehicles so that Ukrainian forces can respond.

"We badly need the opportunity to watch the movement of Russian troops, especially at night when our technologies are blind in fact! SAR satellite data is important to understanding Russian troop and vehicles movements at night considering that clouds cover about 80 percent of Ukraine during the day," Fedorov wrote in a letter that he posted on Twitter.

@eos_da and @maxpolyakov appeal to the global remote sensing firms and organizations to provide real-time SAR data to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine with actionable intelligence. pic.twitter.com/DzfNze3K3r

- Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 1, 2022

Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov made the initial request on Monday night with an urgent plea saying, "We need the data now." His company, EOS Data Analytics, is offering to quickly analyze and process the data for use by the Ukrainian Defense Service. The company has set up a webpage here with more information.

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