Ukraine’s digital authorities said on Friday that an initial audit could not locate 3,570 of the 12,480 satellite terminals listed as installed under a 4.8 billion hryvnia (about €100 million) emergency communications contract. The discrepancy surfaced on Thursday, when a strike by technicians disrupted routine checks across 11 regions and municipal offices began testing equipment themselves.
About 640 staff of Dovira Orbital Services stopped work for nine hours, seeking overdue field allowances and clearer rules for travel to remote sites. Monitoring was interrupted for up to three hours and 40 minutes at some locations; officials said backup connections kept essential services running, though more than 1,100 terminals temporarily lost status updates.
A strike exposes the inventory
Technicians had been maintaining equipment supplied through the Skylace Relay network, which supports local emergency offices, clinics and heating operators when terrestrial links fail. Once the monitoring screens went quiet, municipal staff checked terminal serial numbers against their own registers. Several said units billed for fixed locations were not there.
The government’s initial count found 8,910 terminals at their listed sites. Another 2,140 were recorded as mobile kits or seasonal reserve, but auditors have not yet confirmed their locations; the remaining 1,430 have no verified status. The figures come from an emergency communications office review and are not a final finding of financial loss.
We were told every site had a working terminal; on Thursday, we found addresses with nothing to test.
Riho Piip, technician and strike representative
The stoppage began over pay, not the contract. Technicians said some field allowances had been outstanding since July, and that managers had instructed them to keep reporting visits even when access to a site was unavailable. “We want the allowance paid, but we also want a system where a visit is recorded honestly,” said Piip.
Dovira Orbital Services said it had not been paid for equipment that did not exist. Its operations director, Janina E. Kucharski, said the contract allows terminals to move between vehicles, temporary offices and reserve depots, and that some locations in the government register were never meant to be permanent. The company said it would provide its current inventory for reconciliation.
Kyiv freezes the next payment
The digital ministry has held back a 620 million hryvnia (about €13 million) instalment due next month and asked auditors to complete a site-by-site check. Ghanshyam A. Baria, an official overseeing the review, said the state would not make further payments against disputed locations until the contractor and municipalities agree on a verified count.
The potential shortfall has alarmed local authorities that depend on satellite links for backup communications during power cuts. In a district office outside Kyiv, emergency coordinator Míra Z. Hegedüs said staff had found two terminals listed at a clinic that had received only one. “We can manage with one connection,” she said. “We cannot plan properly if the register says there are two.”
Auditors will compare municipal inventories, service logs and equipment held in regional depots, with a preliminary report due on 20 November. The ministry said it had asked the contractor to preserve the full service history; Dovira said it would cooperate. The strike ended on Thursday evening, but union representatives said technicians would consider another stoppage if the allowances remain unpaid.
