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By Gianluca Lo Nostro
(Reuters) -Franco-British satellite operator Eutelsat said on Monday it was committed to boosting Europe's autonomy in space-based connectivity and supplying internet access to war-torn Ukraine.
The comments followed a nearly 50% jump in Eutelsat's shares on Monday, amid a wider rally of Europe's defence stocks, as investors bet on prospects of rising European demand for its OneWeb satellites.
"We have deployed and continue to operate hundreds of terminals across Ukraine and the Black Sea," a Eutelsat spokesperson told Reuters, adding the company had played a key role in the region since the start of the war.
Reuters reported in February that U.S. negotiators working on a critical minerals deal had hinted at a potential shutdown of Elon Musk's Starlink in Ukraine should a deal not be reached.
Friday's clash between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump may have opened a door for other satellite operators to swoop in and replace Starlink in the war-torn country.
"US-European tensions put Starlink's sales momentum at risk in Europe and OneWeb is the only other low-earth orbit option," Stephane Beyazian, analyst at Oddo BHF, said.
"We expect customers procuring satellite connectivity solutions to manage the risks related to individual suppliers, which is why they may look for additional capacity providers," ING analyst Jan Frederik Slijkerman said.
Eutelsat, which merged with Britain's OneWeb in 2023, manages a constellation of around 650 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites supplying internet access to a wide range of enterprise customers.
OneWeb is the second-largest LEO constellation in the world after Space X's Starlink despite being less than a tenth of its size.
Last year, Ukraine's biggest mobile operator Kyivstar said it had been testing OneWeb technologies with the military as OneWeb's official representative in the country.
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi)