Russian troops in Ukraine have lost access to Starlink internet terminals after Kyiv and SpaceX moved to block unauthorised Russian use, a disruption Ukrainian officials described as a major blow to Moscow’s battlefield operations.
Ukraine says Russian units had been using thousands of illicit Starlink connections since 2022. The scale of the outage could not be verified, but three Ukrainian sources said the disruption appeared significant.
Ukraine said last week it was working with Elon Musk's SpaceX to block the use of Starlink terminals used on Russian attack drones and was trying to compile a "white list" of all Ukraine's terminals so the Russian ones could be turned off.
"Starlinks included in the 'white list' are working - Russian terminals have already been blocked," Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on Telegram, adding that the list was still being updated.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk said on Sunday that moves by SpaceX to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia "seemed to have worked."
A Russian military blog said that "Two Majors", had said there had been a big failure of Starlink terminals on the Russian side that started on Wednesday evening.
A Ukrainian military source said Russian units were switching to RS-30M satellite terminals.
“I am sure that the accuracy and number of hits are decreasing,” the source said.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to the defence minister, described the situation as a “catastrophe” for Russian troops. “All command of the troops has collapsed. Assault operations have been stopped in many areas,” he wrote on Telegram.
Another Ukrainian source on the eastern front said Russian forces faced “significant problems with communication” and that almost all Starlink links on their side were offline.
Ukraine relies on tens of thousands of Starlink units for communications and drones. Russia’s usage remains unclear, though estimates in early 2024 suggested the figure was in the thousands.
Kyiv recently found Starlink terminals on long-range drones used in Russian attacks, prompting its request for SpaceX assistance.
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