Russia cloaks launch schedule after spaceport falls in Ukraine’s sights

俄罗斯航天发射场进入乌克兰视野，俄方开始掩盖发射计划

If you believe official Russian reports, the country’s northern spaceport has come under attack from drones on multiple occasions in the last few months. The drones did not succeed in striking the spaceport, but the attempted attacks come as Russia ramps up activity at Plesetsk Cosmodrome to deploy a new constellation of Internet and data relay satellites akin to SpaceX’s Starlink, a space-based network underpinning much of Ukraine’s military communications infrastructure. 如果相信俄罗斯官方的报道，该国北部的航天发射场在过去几个月里多次遭到无人机袭击。虽然无人机未能成功击中发射场，但这些袭击企图发生之际，俄罗斯正加大普列谢茨克航天发射场（Plesetsk Cosmodrome）的活动力度，旨在部署一套类似于 SpaceX“星链”（Starlink）的互联网和数据中继卫星星座，而“星链”正是支撑乌克兰大部分军事通信基础设施的太空网络。

Plesetsk is a military base located in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, some 500 miles north of Moscow. The Russian space agency’s first acknowledgment of an attempted drone attack at Plesetsk came a few weeks ago, when the head of Roscosmos, the Russian state corporation for civilian spaceflight, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Dmitry Bakanov, the general director of Roscosmos, regaled Putin with a list of Russia’s recent accomplishments in the space sector. The list was modest, at least by the standards of an established space power, with 17 launches in 2025, a distant third to the United States and China. 普列谢茨克是一个位于俄罗斯阿尔汉格尔斯克地区的军事基地，距离莫斯科以北约 500 英里。俄罗斯航天局首次承认普列谢茨克遭到无人机袭击企图是在几周前，当时俄罗斯国家航天集团（Roscosmos）负责人与俄罗斯总统普京在克里姆林宫会面。俄罗斯国家航天集团总经理德米特里·巴卡诺夫（Dmitry Bakanov）向普京列举了俄罗斯近期在航天领域的成就。至少以老牌航天大国的标准来看，这份清单显得有些平淡：2025 年仅进行了 17 次发射，远远落后于美国和中国，位居第三。

“Serious inbound attempts” “严重的入侵企图”

Then the general director of Roscosmos told Putin about “perhaps the most exciting event” for Russia’s space program in the last year. This was the launch on March 23 of the first batch of communications satellites for Russia’s own version of Starlink. This network, called Rassvet, is undergoing development by a company called Bureau 1440, which the Russian government has backed with more than $1.2 billion. The network’s first 16 operational satellites launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome aboard a Soyuz-2.1b rocket. 随后，这位俄罗斯国家航天集团总经理向普京讲述了俄罗斯航天计划在过去一年中“或许最令人兴奋的事件”。那就是 3 月 23 日发射了俄罗斯版“星链”的首批通信卫星。该网络名为“Rassvet”，正由一家名为“1440 局”（Bureau 1440）的公司开发，俄罗斯政府已为其提供了超过 12 亿美元的资金支持。该网络的首批 16 颗运行卫星由一枚“联盟-2.1b”运载火箭从普列谢茨克航天发射场发射升空。

“Our ‘friends’ did everything they could to prevent this launch from taking place,” Bakanov claimed in the April 11 meeting with Putin. “We had serious inbound attempts to the cosmodrome that day, but nevertheless, the joint combat crews of Roscosmos and the Space Forces accomplished their mission.” “我们的‘朋友’竭尽全力阻止这次发射，”巴卡诺夫在 4 月 11 日与普京的会晤中声称。“那天我们遭到了针对航天发射场的严重入侵企图，但尽管如此，俄罗斯国家航天集团和航天部队的联合战斗人员还是完成了任务。”

The administration of the city of Mirny, the closest town to Plesetsk, warned of a “drone threat” to the region between March 22 and 25 on an official social media account. Local citizens replied to the warning, suggesting Internet connections in the town were cut. City officials said the “temporary restrictions” on mobile Internet service were “necessitated by security measures aimed at protecting citizens and critical infrastructure.” 距离普列谢茨克最近的米尔内市（Mirny）政府在官方社交媒体账号上警告称，3 月 22 日至 25 日期间该地区存在“无人机威胁”。当地居民在回应警告时表示，镇上的互联网连接被切断了。市政府官员称，对移动互联网服务的“临时限制”是“旨在保护公民和关键基础设施的安全措施所必需的”。

Three months earlier, in December, local Russian news outlets reported another attempted drone attack at Plesetsk. This one reportedly occurred around the time of the launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket on December 25 with a radar observation satellite designed to provide Russia’s government with all-weather reconnaissance imagery. 三个月前的 12 月，俄罗斯当地新闻媒体报道了另一起针对普列谢茨克的无人机袭击企图。据报道，这次袭击发生在 12 月 25 日“联盟-2.1a”运载火箭发射前后，该火箭搭载了一颗旨在为俄罗斯政府提供全天候侦察图像的雷达观测卫星。

A local news organization, News29.ru, published a photo it claimed showed a destroyed drone near Plesetsk. Reports by News29.ru and another regional news website, Kareliainform.ru, suggested multiple drones were part of the attempted strike on Plesetsk. “The targets were detected and neutralized in a timely manner,” Kareliainform.ru reported. 当地新闻机构 News29.ru 发布了一张照片，声称显示了普列谢茨克附近一架被摧毁的无人机。News29.ru 和另一家区域性新闻网站 Kareliainform.ru 的报道暗示，有多架无人机参与了对普列谢茨克的袭击企图。Kareliainform.ru 报道称：“目标被及时发现并消灭。”

A statement attributed to the Cosmodrome Press Service was posted on Mirny’s social media page: “The Cosmodrome Command expresses its appreciation for the vigilance and high sense of civic responsibility demonstrated by residents of the Plesetsk and Kargopol districts of the Arkhangelsk Region upon detecting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying toward the cosmodrome’s operational zone.” 米尔内的社交媒体页面上发布了一份据称来自航天发射场新闻处的声明：“航天发射场指挥部对阿尔汉格尔斯克地区普列谢茨克和卡尔戈波尔区的居民在发现无人机飞向发射场作业区时所表现出的警惕性和高度公民责任感表示感谢。”

“The timely receipt of information regarding the detection of these UAVs—and their flight trajectory—made it possible to prevent damage to the Cosmodrome’s military infrastructure facilities and to save lives,” the statement said. 声明称：“及时收到有关发现这些无人机及其飞行轨迹的信息，使得防止航天发射场军事基础设施受损并挽救生命成为可能。”

“Legitimate target” “合法目标”

Russian officials did not identify the source of the drones, but Russia’s defense ministry has ascribed other drone swarms in the Arkhangelsk region to Ukraine, some 800 miles away. Ukrainian drones have routinely struck deep into Russian territory, hitting Russian military bases, oil refineries, and the Russian capital. Russia is scaling back its annual Victory Day parade in Red Square next month due to the threat of a Ukrainian drone attack. 俄罗斯官员没有指明无人机的来源，但俄罗斯国防部已将阿尔汉格尔斯克地区的其他无人机群归咎于约 800 英里外的乌克兰。乌克兰无人机经常深入俄罗斯境内，袭击俄罗斯军事基地、炼油厂和俄罗斯首都。由于乌克兰无人机袭击的威胁，俄罗斯正在缩减下个月在红场举行的年度胜利日阅兵规模。

Russia makes no secret of Plesetsk’s importance for the country’s military. “It is particularly important to note that the success of the Special Military Operation is embedded in every launch conducted from this spaceport,” the cosmodrome’s acting chief, Dmitry Demin, said in public remarks earlier this month celebrating the 65th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person to fly into space. Special military operation is Russia’s official euphemism for the country’s invasion of Ukraine. 俄罗斯毫不掩饰普列谢茨克对该国军队的重要性。本月早些时候，在庆祝尤里·加加林成为首位飞向太空的人 65 周年的公开讲话中，该航天发射场代理负责人德米特里·杰明（Dmitry Demin）表示：“特别值得注意的是，‘特别军事行动’的成功植根于从该航天发射场进行的每一次发射中。”“特别军事行动”是俄罗斯对其入侵乌克兰的官方委婉说法。

A Russian diplomat in 2022 suggested that civilian satellites, such as Starlink, used by Ukraine could become “legitimate targets” for Russian retaliation. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that Ukraine has its sights set on the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. 2022 年，一位俄罗斯外交官曾暗示，乌克兰使用的民用卫星（如“星链”）可能成为俄罗斯报复的“合法目标”。那么，乌克兰将目光投向普列谢茨克航天发射场也就不足为奇了。

Since the reported drone incursions, the Russian government put a tighter lid on information about its launches from Plesetsk. Authorities typically publish airspace warning notices called NOTAMs advising pilots to steer clear of a rocket’s flight path and downrange drop zones where spent booster rockets fall back to Earth. These NOTAMs usually cover a few minutes to a few hours for a primary launch date, and perhaps a backup date in the event of a delay. US and Chinese authorities release similar notices for their space launches. 自报道称发生无人机入侵事件以来，俄罗斯政府对普列谢茨克的发射信息进行了更严格的封锁。当局通常会发布名为 NOTAM（航行通告）的空域警告通知，建议飞行员避开火箭的飞行路径和助推器残骸坠落的地面区域。这些 NOTAM 通常涵盖主要发射日期的几分钟到几小时，如果出现延误，可能还会包括备用日期。美国和中国当局也会为他们的航天发射发布类似的通知。