How Did Planet Labs See Troops Build Up Before the Invasion of Ukraine?

Will Marshall says Planet Labs imagery showed troops building up on the border of Ukraine before the full-scale invasion, and Ukraine still uses that data to watch threats before they reach the border. The edge he describes is information against a larger conventional force. Russia has more troops, tanks, missiles, and planes. Ukraine does not want to be invaded, and it has used drones, satellites, and AI to see earlier. He does not go into the operational details.

Other governments asked for the same daily picture after watching that use. The US Navy monitors the South China Sea with it, about 13 million square kilometers of ocean, slightly larger than the United States, looking for illegal fishing, vessels breaking oil embargoes, and activity such as island building, then shares that view with allies including the Philippines. Admiral Paparo, who runs Indo-PACOM, the US command in the Pacific, uses the imagery to look for early signs of a threat to Taiwan and wants more than a day's warning. Information is power in this account: a shared picture can help countries prepare, deter, and use diplomacy, and can make a war less likely. That is Marshall's description of the security mission.