NavList:

Many countries are developing satellite navigation systems to compete with GPS -- the EU, Japan, China, and Russia.    Russia's Glonass system has the most satellites in orbit.   If the Proton rocket has previously used to launch satellites, than the "explanation" sounds a bit more like "blame the computer" than possibly the real cause.   There certainly is a chance that something happened on the launch that pushed the program into a regime that hadn't been used before, but this would make the program an accessory to some primary failure.

If I recollect correctly, it costs something on the order of one [American] billion dollars (ie, $1.0 x 10^9) to build a GPS satellite, test it, launch it, and put it in orbit.   Assuming Russian costs are as high if not higher, this is a big-bucks loss for Russia as well as politically embarrassing.

Lu Abel