A recent Elon Musk decision to shut down Russian military-operated Starlink terminals in Ukraine has hammered Kremlin forces with internet access denial across a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) fighting front that has left commanders without means of communication and combat units unable to attack, Ukrainian mainstream news reports and milbloggers reported on Thursday.
Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov, a high-profile Ukrainian electronic warfare expert, in Wednesday evening comments published on his personal Telegram channel, said practically all frontline Russian combat units dependent on the US-developed Starlink satellite system for digital communications no longer are able to transfer data via secure internet, while Russian sources said some formations had had to revert to paper maps and couriers carrying memory sticks between units.
In late January, Beskrestnov, a private industry electronic warfare expert recently appointed as senior technical advisor to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, flagged new Russian use of Starlink receivers in kamikaze drones used to attack Ukrainian homes and businesses, allowing real-time control by Russian pilots of attack aircraft, across Ukraine, with practically no risk of jamming.
In one of the most rapid responses by any Western company assisting the Ukrainian military of the entire Russo-Ukrainian War, Musk agreed with Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Federov that Starlink should impose a “whitelist” additional layer of access to Starlink terminals in Ukrainian territory, allowing only registered, verified, and authorized Starlink terminals to operate. Starlink engineers, in less than 48 hours, implemented soft- and hardware changes shutting down all gray and black market Starlink terminals operating in Ukraine, Musk told media on Feb. 1.
Federov, in an X post, praised Musk for delivering “real results,” calling the South African-born businessman “a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people.”
Beskrestnov’s report that Starlink terminals had in fact been massively disabled across Kremlin forces in Ukraine was one of the earliest, most authoritative, and emphatic confirmations from the fighting front that the Musk-ordered changes targeting Starlink terminals in Russian military hands were operational and effective.
“The enemy doesn’t just have a problem on the fronts; the enemy has a disaster. All command of [Russian] troops has collapsed. [Russian] assault operations have been stopped in many areas,” Beskrestnov said.
The mainstream Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, in a Telegram post on Thursday, citing its own sources, confirmed Russian offensive operations had slowed down or even halted in some sectors, reporting in part: “Russian troop command and control has effectively collapsed, and assaults have been halted in a number of areas. Meanwhile, the Swamp Troops [Ukrainian: болотные войска – a derisive term for Russian Federation armed forces] are spewing vitriol at Musk. But it won’t help them anymore.”
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in its Thursday morning last-24-hours situation update reported reduced fighting intensity across the front but assaults still taking place, particularly in the southern Hulyaipole and eastern Pokrovsk sectors.
Quantities of Russian glide bombs dropped (233 on Wednesday) were effectively unchanged from Russian Air Force strike tempos in past weeks, army data showed.
Communications networks based on Musk’s Starlink data network and SpaceX satellite constellation are heavily used by both the Russian and Ukrainian armies, particularly ground forces operating on front lines where the power grid and civilian mobile phones don’t work. In forward positions, Starlink and its usually reliable rapid internet access is often the only way for a unit commander to update maps, track units, update and organize targeting, and understand enemy locations and movements. The Starlink network is also widely used by both sides as a navigation tool for long-range drones.
The AFU operates both white market Starlink terminals bought by the Ukrainian military or Western allied states and gray market terminals usually bought for individual units by domestic donors. Estimates of the total number of terminals operated by the AFU range from at least 50,000 constantly in use and as many as 200,000 acquired and used in the field at some time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Starlink sales in Russia are banned, and theoretically, Starlink terminals in Russian hands should not work across Russia’s territory and in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia. The Kremlin has evaded the ban by purchasing terminals on the black market or in third party states and bringing them to Ukrainian territory illicitly.
The independent Russian news agency Astra, in a Wednesday evening report, confirmed Russian army-operated Starlink terminals had stopped functioning across the force. Russian military unit Telegram feeds monitored by Kyiv Post reported that some commanders unable to transmit data digitally were falling back on paper documents and runners carrying memory sticks, but that could not be confirmed independently.
The pro-Moscow blogger, Belarusskiy Silovik (450,000 followers), a claimed retired Russian special forces officer blogging on the war since 2014, reported on Wednesday: “I confirm, they’ve shut down Starlink, it already happened once [in the past] but that was for a short time. Now we will see for how long, but considering how SpaceX and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry are cooperating, it could be for a long time. [But] in the AFU there have been shootdowns as well.”
The widely read Russian milblogger Dva Mayora (1.2 million followers, operated by the Russian brother-sister propagandist team Dmitry and Ekaterina Korzina) reported on Wednesday: “We are receiving reports that Starlink terminals have been turned off across the front. The enemy [AFU] also is reporting similar problems in his channels.”
Failures of gray market Starlink terminals acquired by Ukrainian units were widely reported, with the shutdowns possibly most common in National Guard and Territorial Defense units, as well as civilian volunteer groups more dependent on domestic donors for equipment. AFU regular army brigades and smaller special operations units usually have top priority for government-purchased kit.
Beskrestnov, in a Thursday statement, said that the AFU and Defense Ministry are aware that the shutdown targeting Russian Starlink terminals had made gray market terminals operated by friendly forces inoperable as well. Users with switched-off terminals should send registration data by secure link to his office which, along with Starlink technicians, would update access codes and re-link the terminals and return internet access to those frontline users.
“Brothers from all units, I ask you to speed up the provision of data on personal and volunteer Starlinks that you use through Delta [the pan-AFU secure data-sharing network]. I give you my word that this data is needed only for the register of terminals that will operate in the country. No one will later take Starlinks from you or put them on the balance of another unit,” Beskrestnov said in a Thursday message to Ukrainian gray market Starlink terminal users.
“We are ready to include [non-functional Starlink terminals into] white lists at any time, so we are very much waiting for information from you. We understand that all this seems like unnecessary trouble and hassle for the military and civilians, but this is the only way we can protect our country from the dangers of [Russian] Starlink-controlled [unmanned aerial vehicles] UAVs,” Beskrestnov said. “We apologize for the inconvenience with registration, but there is no other option. We are primarily thinking about protecting the civilian population of the country and hope for your understanding.”