Yuriy Kobzar20:43, 12.10.24

Ukrainian soldiers don’t believe that Elon Musk really can’t do anything about it.

The effectiveness of Russian forces in Ukraine has increased significantly since they began to actively use Starlink satellite terminals. The Washington Post writes about it .

It is noted that deliveries of these terminals to Russia are prohibited in accordance with American sanctions. However, the black market of “Starlinks” operates in Russia.

Ukrainian soldiers interviewed by the authors of the publication criticized Elon Musk personally because his company is not doing enough to block Russians from using Starlink terminals.

They have doubts that the American billionaire really wants to solve this problem because, in their opinion, he probably has a favorable attitude towards Russia.

Starlink terminals in the Russian army

As the paper notes, at the start of a full-scale war, Russian troops mostly relied on radio to relay what they were seeing and doing during battles. Instead, the Armed Forces relied on Internet communication through “Starlinks”, and this was a significant advantage. Now the Russians are mirroring Ukraine, using Starlink in a similar way, the Ukrainian military says.

An officer of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, which has been defending the Vugledar area since 2022 and was recently forced out, described Russia’s use of Starlink as one of the important factors in addition to their numerical superiority. 

According to the Ukrainian military, the Russian offensive forces are now using Starlinks to coordinate their assaults and artillery bombardments. 

“Previously, the Russians could not control some of their movements, maneuvers, artillery, infantry,” said Yevhen, a drone platoon commander of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade. According to him, now this situation has changed.

Where Russians take Starlink terminals

The newspaper’s own analysis showed that Starlink terminals are freely sold in Russia at a price of one thousand dollars, which is not much higher than their cost in other countries. Terminals are tied to foreign phone numbers and mailboxes to avoid blocking.

Users in the “customer support” chat rooms of Moscow stores selling these terminals say that it is easy to purchase and register Starlink sets abroad. The majority is mined in Europe and transported through the United Arab Emirates. One supplier reported that the connection for devices purchased in the European Union may be blocked after 90 days of use; one of the solutions is to register using Ukrainian data.

How to solve the problem

As The Washington Post notes, Starlink can disable individual terminals based on their identification numbers, or block entire areas on the planet’s surface from receiving a signal. A person familiar with Starlink told the publication that the company is technically able to locate active terminals based on their pings to satellites, but it can be difficult to identify a user on the “front edge of the battle zone,” where Ukrainian and Russian forces are operating very close to each other. .

At the request of journalists, the Pentagon and SpaceX said that they are fighting the problem of “Starlinks” in the Russian army, but did not provide any specifics.

The war in Ukraine: the latest news

As UNIAN wrote, the loss of Pokrovsk will become an economic problem for Ukraine . Most of the coal consumed by Ukrainian metallurgy is mined on the outskirts of this city.

We also told that Russian strikes on Odesa could provoke a war with NATO . The Russians are trying to hit civilian grain trucks, but there is a risk that some missile will not fly where it was launched.

(C)UNIAN 2024