On February 4, pro-war military bloggers reported that Russia’s frontline troops had lost access to Starlink satellite Internet. While Ukrainian forces have had official access to Starlink since the start of the full-scale invasion, many Russian units have relied on contraband devices as a key element of their battlefield communications. Until now, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has appeared willing to turn a blind eye to Russia’s unauthorized use of Starlink. Previous system failures that were mistaken for targeted outages turned out to be false alarms, and Ukrainian officials warned that cutting off Starlink access in Russian-occupied territories would be “catastrophic” for Kyiv’s frontline drone warfare. This time, however, the outage is not accidental: it comes after Russian troops started equipping their own drones with Starlink en masse and carrying out attacks on the Ukrainian army’s rear positions. Now, Kyiv and SpaceX face the challenge of engineering a Starlink blackout for the Russian side without hampering the Ukrainian military.
Other than the title being the most meaningful comment in this matter, this article explains the broader context of starlink on the front and possible alternatives.
It doesn’t answer the question, possibly because it does not have the evidence to confirm that it’s because the Kremlin now can afford some other alternative. Time will tell.
so in the best probable condiditions there is an ability to shut down network services in real time.
I think you’re right about this. Shutting down in real time if they think the dish is compromised should be possible, but whitelisting them requires more overhead to verify authenticity, especially for civilians.
I think you’re right about this. Shutting down in real time if they think the dish is compromised should be possible, but whitelisting them requires more overhead to verify authenticity, especially for civilians.