Just before Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s northern border this month, members of Ukraine’s 92nd Assault Brigade lost a vital asset. Starlink Satellite Internet Servicethat soldiers use to communicate, gather intelligence and carry out drone attacks, had slowed to a crawl.
Operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink has played a critical role towards the Ukrainian military since the early days of the war with Russia. Without full service, Ukrainian soldiers said, they would not be able to quickly communicate and share information about the surprise attack and resorted to sending text messages. Their experiences were repeated on the new northern front line, according to Ukrainian soldiers, officials and electronic warfare experts.
At the heart of the breakdowns: increased interference from Russia.
As Russian troops advanced this month near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, they deployed more powerful electronic weapons and more sophisticated tools to degrade Starlink service, Ukrainian officials said. This progress poses a major threat to Ukraine, which has often managed to foil the Russian army with the help of frontline connectivity and other technologies, but was on the defensive against the new Russian advance.
The new outages appear to be the first time the Russians have caused widespread Starlink disruptions. If they continue to succeed, it could mark a tactical shift in the conflict, highlighting Ukraine’s vulnerability and dependence on services provided by Mr Musk’s company. As the United States and other governments work with SpaceX, the disruptions raise broader questions about Starlink’s reliability in the face of a technically sophisticated adversary.
Starlink works by transmitting an Internet connection from satellites circling the Earth. The signals are received on the ground by satellite dishes the size of pizza boxes, which then distribute the connection like a Wi-Fi router to nearby laptops, phones and other devices. Starlink has provided Ukraine with a vital internet service since 2022, with soldiers using it to guide internet-connected drones that are used, among other tasks, for surveillance and as weapons.
In an interview this week, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, said recent Russian attacks on Starlink appeared to use new and more advanced technology. The service has already resisted interference remarkably well on the battlefield, where there has been widespread electronic warfareradio jamming and other communications disruptions.
But the Russians are “now testing different mechanisms to disrupt the quality of Starlink connections because it is very important for us,” Mr. Fedorov said, without giving details of what he called “powerful” systems. electronic weapons. Ukraine is constantly communicating with SpaceX to resolve issues, he added.
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. An official who leads Russia’s electronic warfare efforts told state media last month that the military had put Starlink on a “target list” and developed capabilities to counter the service.
Although Mr. Fedorov said Starlink service should improve soon, some of the outages appear linked to the Russian attacks, according to soldiers and officials. Any disruption at critical moments on the battlefield would further disadvantage Ukraine’s already overstretched military, they said.
“We are losing the electronic warfare fight,” said Ajax, the call sign deputy commander of the 92nd Achilles Strike Drone Battalion, who described in an interview the challenges his troops faced after the Starlink connectivity failure.
“A day before the attacks, it simply closed its doors,” said Ajax, who would only be named by its call sign in accordance with Ukrainian military policy. “It got super, super slow.”
The disruptions put the entire unit at a disadvantage, said a drone pilot who goes by the name Kartel. During the first armored attacks of the Russian offensive this month, he said, he was in a garage without food or a sleeping bag. His team began launching drone attacks but was hampered by connection issues with Starlink. Communication became so slow that soldiers had to use text messages sent through chat apps, he said — and even then, sending the messages took a while.
“During the first hours, the front line was very dynamic. The enemy was moving. And we were moving too,” he said. “We had to communicate quickly.”
For three days, he said, the unit resisted the Russians, not without difficulty. “It made everything more complicated,” he said. “Everything took longer.”
Kari A. Bingen, a former U.S. Department of Defense official and electronic warfare expert, said Starlink and other satellite communications could be disrupted by using high-power radio frequency to overwhelm satellite links. connection. Invisible attacks are usually carried out from a vehicle with a large radio tower attached to the top, she explained.
“It’s naturally in the crosshairs of Russian forces,” said Ms. Bingen, now director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. “This prevents Ukrainian forces from communicating on the battlefield. »
Explanations for Starlink outages in Ukraine over the past year vary. Several experts said Russia has been able to better interfere with the signal between satellites and Starlink terminals on the ground through the use of powerful and precise jammers. Others suggested the service had been disrupted by specialized electronic weapons mounted on drones, which can disrupt GPS signals from Starlink, the global positioning system used to help locate satellites.
Large increases in Starlink usage may also degrade service. In some cases, technical restrictions intended to prevent Russian forces from using Starlink have harmed the service of Ukrainian soldiers along the front line. At other times, disruptions can be more random, like earlier this month when SpaceX reported worldwide service issues due to solar storms.
Throughout the conflict, Ukrainian forces have tried various techniques to protect Starlink from attacks, including placing the terminals in holes dug in the ground and covering them with metal mesh. Infozahyst, a Ukrainian company that works with the military and specializes in building electronic warfare tools, said it does not believe such improvised solutions are effective.
Starlink has given Mr. Musk outsized influence in the war because he controls where satellite service is available and can choose to cut off access to it. In some cases, Ukrainian officials have appealed directly to Mr. Musk to enable Starlink access during military operations so they can carry out drone strikes across enemy lines — requests the billionaire has not. not always approved. The US government, which purchased Starlink terminals for Ukraine, has sometimes interfered in the negotiations.
Starlink is not sold directly to Russia. But this year, Ukrainian officials publicly alarms triggered that Russia was using Starlink terminals purchased from third-party providers, which could erode Ukraine’s connectivity advantage.
Experts have warned that Ukraine is too dependent on a single company for such a vital resource, especially one run by someone as unpredictable as Mr Musk. But Ukraine’s dependence on Starlink is unlikely to decrease. There are few alternatives to such a comprehensive and reliable service.
Mr Fedorov said the Ukrainian government was constantly testing new systems. The military has specialized systems for maritime drones that have destroyed a number of Russian ships in the Black Sea, he explained.
“But of course there is no mass-produced equivalent,” he said.
For Ajax, the Ukrainian commander, the loss of Starlink service brought back bad memories of the war. When fighting near the Russian border in 2022, his unit was sometimes cut off from Starlink, disrupting video feeds from drones used to target artillery from a distance. Instead, the unit deployed soldiers to covertly monitor enemy positions and direct attacks.
“It’s become the old way with radios,” he said. “We had to say, ‘Move 100 feet to the left.’ It was super strange.
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from kyiv, Ukraine and Olha Kotioujanska from Kharkiv and Kramatorsk.
