BERLIN, November 11. /TASS/. Germany’s Rheinmetall defense concern announced that it has started providing satellite images to Kiev in cooperation with Finland’s ICEYE aerospace company since October.

According to the statement, published on the Rheinmetall website, the intensified cooperation with ICEYE in September, 2014 has allegedly "yielded its first fruits."

"In order to satisfy Ukraine’s urgent demand for SAR [Synthetic-aperture radar - TASS] satellite surveillance, Rheinmetall and Ukraine signed an agreement with support from the German government," the company said.

The agreement expands the options for provision of data, obtained from SAR micro-satellites, as well as other services, provided by ICEYE.

"Since the beginning of October, Ukraine has been receiving new satellite images, obtained via SAR satellites within the cooperation between Rheinmetall and ICEYE," the company continued.

It claimed that these images will augment other intelligence used for decision-making and mission planning. According to Rheinmetall, this would allegedly give Ukraine an advantage in surveillance, target detection, and deployment on the battlefield.

Rheinmetall is Germany’s largest defense company. It profits from the Ukrainian conflict and predicts a significant increase in its income in the future. In 2023, its turnover increased by 12% to 7.1 billion euros, and its net profit rose by 9%, to 0.6 billion euros.