Rafal Modzhevsky, the Polish co-founder of the Finnish company ICEYE, said that before the full-scale Russian invasion, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, offered to purchase the company’s microsatellite. The satellite images obtained twice disrupted the Russian plans in 2021-2022.
Rafal Modzhevsky, the Polish co-founder of the Finnish company ICEYE, said that before the full-scale Russian invasion, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, offered to purchase the company’s microsatellite. The satellite images obtained twice disrupted the Russian plans in 2021-2022.
Polish engineer and entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of ICEYE Rafal Modrzewski told the Polish publication money.pl about this. He noted that ICEYE is currently valued at over 1 billion and employs about 800 people from more than 70 countries around the world.
The collaboration began when the Ukrainians entered into a formal agreement with ICEYE in December 2021, two and a half months before the start of the Russian aggression.
«The head of Ukrainian intelligence, that is, General Kyrylo Budanov, called us and said that he would like to buy one of these satellites himself, that he no longer wants to receive images from abroad, but would like to have his own satellite», — Modzhevsky said.
ICEYE specializes in providing high-resolution radar images of the Earth using its own constellation of microsatellites. The company can monitor selected areas with a frequency of about an hour. They are used not only for defense purposes, but also, for example, by insurers when searching for lost ships. These images are available regardless of weather conditions and time of day — even at night.
Such opportunities have repeatedly given Ukraine an advantage over the Russian occupiers.
«With the help of satellite imagery, we take away the element of surprise from the enemy, that is, he can no longer surprise us with the time and place of the attack. A completely new strategy has emerged, which is now aimed at surprising the enemy, who, in turn, wants to surprise us. To surprise us by publishing, that is, making public, the fact of the intention to attack,» notes the co-founder of ICEYE.
Rafal Modzhevsky claims that the publication of satellite images disrupted Russia’s plans in 2021-2022 at least twice. According to him, «the Americans twice published information that Russian troops were planning to attack in two days». He added that they made these statements based on «so-called intelligence leaks».
ICEYE was created to track changes in the ice cap. The company received its first contract from the American giant Exxon Mobile — it was supposed to track oil cargoes from Moscow by sea to the north using satellites. After Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimea, the first order for $1 million «evaporated overnight» as sanctions just covered the transportation of raw materials via the northern route.
However, this was not the end of the company, but rather the beginning, as the information that ICEYE had access to itself became invaluable. A few years later, as Russian forces prepared for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ICEYE received a secret order.
«We received a call from several clients, as well as a client from the United States, asking if we could provide images of this particular constellation for intelligence and defense purposes. So we had to think about it,» said Rafal Modrzewski.
ICEYE has the world’s largest constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, with 44 currently in orbit around the Earth. The company plans to launch 25 more, which would require at least four launches per year.
In 2023, the GUR said that ICEYE played a «very important role» in the attack on Sevastopol Bay on September 13, 2023, when the Russian landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov-on-Don were destroyed.
Last fall, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (with the assistance of Germany and weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall) signed a strategically important contract with ICEYE. According to Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainian command will be able to independently determine priority surveillance zones and quickly receive up-to-date data via the ICEYE satellite system.
