Just before Russian troops pushed across Ukraine’s northern border this month, members of Ukraine’s 92nd Assault Brigade lost a critical resource. Starlink satellite internet service, which soldiers use to communicate, gather intelligence and carry out drone strikes, has slowed down.
Starlink, operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has been critical to the Ukrainian military since the early days of the war with Russia. Without full service, Ukrainian soldiers were unable to quickly communicate and share information about surprise attacks and relied on sending text messages, he said. Their experience was repeated on the new Northern Front, according to Ukrainian soldiers, officials and electronic warfare experts.
At the heart of the blackout is increased interference from Russia.
Russian forces this month deployed more powerful electronic weapons and more sophisticated tools to degrade Starlink services, making gains near Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said. These developments pose a major threat to Ukraine, which has often overwhelmed Russian forces with the help of wire connections and other technologies but is now on the defensive against new Russian advances.
The outage appears to be the first time Russia has caused widespread disruption to Starlink. If they continue to be successful, it could signal a tactical shift in the conflict and highlight Ukraine’s vulnerability and dependence on the services provided by Maersk’s company. As the U.S. and other governments work with SpaceX, the disruption raises broader questions about Starlink’s reliability against technologically sophisticated adversaries.
Starlink works by transmitting your Internet connection from a satellite orbiting the Earth. The signal is received from the ground by a terminal dish the size of a pizza box, which distributes the connection like a Wi-Fi router to nearby laptops, phones and other devices. Starlink has been providing critical internet services to Ukraine since 2022, allowing soldiers to guide internet-connected drones used for surveillance and weapons.
In an interview this week, Ukraine’s Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the recent Russian attack on Starlink appears to have used new, more advanced technology. Previously, the service effectively prevented interference on battlefields where electronic warfare, radio jamming, and other communications disruptions were prevalent.
But Russia is now “testing various mechanisms to disrupt the quality of Starlink connections,” Mr. Fedorov said, without giving details about the “powerful” electronic weapons system. Ukraine is in constant communication with SpaceX to resolve the issue, he added.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. An official leading Russia’s electronic warfare efforts told state media last month that the military had put Starlink on its “target list” and had developed capabilities to counter it.
Mr. Fedorov said Starlink service would soon improve, but soldiers and officials said some of the disruptions were timed to coincide with the Russian attack. They said that chaos at a critical battlefield moment would further disadvantage Ukraine’s already stretched troops.
“We are losing the electronic warfare battle,” said Ajax, the call sign of the 92nd Achilles Attack Drone Battalion deputy commander. In an interview, Ajax described the difficulties his forces faced following the failure of the Starlink connection.
“A day before the attack, it was just shut down,” said Ajax, who is quoted only on the condition that he be named by his call sign in accordance with Ukrainian military policy. “It’s very, very slow.”
One drone pilot, who uses the Kartel call sign, said the outage puts the entire unit at a disadvantage. He said he was in his garage without food or a sleeping bag during the first armored attack during the Russian offensive this month. His team launched a drone strike, but was hampered by connectivity issues with Starlink. Communication became so slow that soldiers had to resort to text messages sent through chat apps, and even sending messages took time, he said.
“The front line was very dynamic in the first few hours. The enemy was moving. “We were moving too,” he said. “We had to communicate quickly.”
He said the unit held off the Russians for three days without difficulty. “Everything has become more complicated,” he said. “Everything took more time.”
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 frequencies to overwhelm the connection links. Invisible attacks are typically carried out from vehicles with large wireless towers attached to the top, she said.
“It’s definitely in the Russian military’s crosshairs,” said Ms. Bingen, now director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “This reduces the ability of the Ukrainian military to communicate on the battlefield.”
Accounts of Ukraine’s Starlink outage last year vary. Some experts said Russia was adept at using powerful and precise jammers to disrupt signals between satellites and Starlink terminals on the ground. Others have suggested that the service was disrupted by special electronic weapons fitted to the drones, which could confuse GPS signals from Starlink, a global positioning system used to locate satellites.
If Starlink usage increases rapidly, service may be degraded. In some cases, technical restrictions aimed at preventing the Russian military from using Starlink have compromised the service of Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines. Outages can also occur more randomly, as happened earlier this month when SpaceX reported service issues globally due to a solar storm.
During the conflict, Ukrainian forces tried a variety of techniques to protect Starlink from attack, including placing terminals in holes dug into the ground and draping metal mesh over them. Infozahyst, a Ukrainian company that works with the military and specializes in making electronic warfare tools, said such improvised solutions are not effective.
Starlink gave Musk enormous leverage in the war because it controlled where satellite service was available and could choose to block access. In some cases, Ukrainian officials have appealed directly to Musk to turn on Starlink access during military operations, allowing them to carry out drone strikes across enemy lines, but the billionaire has not always approved. The U.S. government, which purchased Starlink terminals for Ukraine, has at times intervened in the negotiations.
Starlink does not sell directly to Russia. But Ukrainian officials this year have publicly raised warnings that Russia is using Starlink terminals purchased from third-party suppliers, potentially undermining Ukraine’s connectivity advantage.
Experts have warned that Ukraine is overly reliant on a single company for such vital resources, especially one run by someone as unpredictable as Musk. But Ukraine’s dependence on Starlink is unlikely to decrease. There are few alternatives to these comprehensive and reliable services.
Mr. Fedorov said the Ukrainian government was constantly testing new systems. The military has special systems for maritime drones that have destroyed multiple Russian ships in the Black Sea, he said.
“But of course nothing is mass produced,” he said.
For Ukrainian commander Ajax, the disruption of Starlink service brought back bad memories of the war. When fighting near the Russian border in 2022, his unit was occasionally cut off from Starlink, jamming drone video feeds used to target artillery from a distance. He placed his soldiers on the spot to secretly monitor the enemy’s positions and attack them directly.
“Radio has become a thing of the past,” he said. “We had to say, ‘Move 100 feet to the left.’ “It was really strange.”
Andrew E. Kramer He contributed reporting from Kiev, Ukraine. Olha Kotiuzanska From Kharkiv and Kramatorsk.
