Ukraine’s Starlink access has been restricted without warning, severely disrupting “several” military missions, presidential adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov said on Oct. 14.
“I confirm that (Starlink owner) SpaceX implemented speed restrictions on Starlink terminals while in motion last night. Currently, the restriction applies to the StarShield ‘military service package’ and limits speed to 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour),” he said in a post on social media.
Ukraine relies on Starlink for several military applications including operating its mid-strike campaign in Russian-occupied Ukraine, as well as interceptor drones that defend against Russia’s new jet-powered attack drones.
This mid-strike campaign has this year allowed Ukraine to strangle Russian logistics, hampering its ability to fight on the front lines.
…
“This complicates drone missions —specifically those involving interceptors and mid-range strike drones — and hampers capabilities for frontline logistics, reconnaissance, and signal relay,” the source added.
…
“The consequences are already being felt in the field. Since the start of the day alone, a drone unit operating within the 7th Corps’ area of responsibility in the Huliaipole sector has had to cancel a number of missions due to these connectivity issues,” the corps said.
“Obviously, this action cannot be a coincidence and is associated with the current political situation,” Beskrestnov said.
As reported by the Kyiv Independent on Oct. 12, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Ukraine with the withholding of intelligence and other assistance in a bid to protect Russian oil refineries.
…
The threats came after a confusing 48 hours during which U.S. President Donald Trump announced a controversial “deal” with Russian President Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel, followed by repeated demands that Ukraine replace Volodymyr Zelensky as president, followed by Trump announcing a unilateral “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, which blindsided both Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukraine has since refrained from attacking Russian oil refineries but Russia has continued its blitz on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, most recently overnight on Oct. 14 when “several” power plants in Kyiv were hit. Trump has refused to accuse Russia of breaking the ceasefire.
I’m gonna be honest here Starlink has done this repeatedly throughout the whole war and I just can’t bring myself to be angry or empathetic anymore. We fought wars no problem before starlink was a thing, it’s time to stop giving all your military intel and information backbone to a company that has repeatedly shown itself to be a double agent.
How does this end? China will send a satellite constellation up there, Musk has one, Bezos wants one, Europe will have to send one, and so on.
Destroying the planet isn’t enough, I guess. The next step is to pollute the night sky.
Logisticaly it isn’t going to happen in the near term
Bezos and Europe don’t have the capacity to send and maintain the numbers of satellites in orbit to build their own satellite constellations. Sending them up on SpaceX rockets invites espionage and sabotage of the equipment. Blue Origin has its own troubles and is years away from supporting that tempo of launches.
ASTs has the tech to reduce the number of satellites but their options to send satellites into orbit are limited and they don’t want SpaceX near their tech. They used Blue Origin’s rocket and it was a disaster.
China might be a contender but they’ve only just started their reusable rocket program and likely can’t generate the number of launches for quite some time.
ASTs has manufacturing delay problems. They still might just be first mover when it comes to direct to device though, but as you mentioned they don’t have a lot of great choices to getting their sat. tech up into orbit…seems they have a lot of international interest though which will bode them well in the future, hopefully.
Oh don’t worry, those satellites are definitely going to help destroy the ozone layer. They’ve got both lanes covered.
Don’t worry about the ozone layer, between all those satellite constellations and Musk’s totally-going-to-happen data centers in space, we’ll have a Kessler Syndrome that will halt any launches.
How would they cause a kessler syndrome? (It probably won’t stop all launches anyway) Starlink sats and any similar constellation that provide internet connection need to be on pretty low orbit so they’ll fall pretty quickly.
It was mostly a flippant joke on my part. You are correct that Starlink has incredibly low orbits and they’ve actually gotten tighter. That said, it’s still getting crowded and already Starlink satellites are performing a thousand avoidance maneuvers on a daily basis. The problem will get worse with additional constellations, especially since not every launcher wants to coordinate and share satellite data. While most of the debris will stay in the same orbit or quickly deorbit, some of it can reach a higher orbit where it will stay longer and cause more serious issues outside of the constellations.
Aren’t orbital maneuvers and collision avoidance are mostly probablistic and with very generous margins? Obviously there are a lot of possible issues with one company deploying more satellites then whole world combined with very little oversight from controlling bodies. To be honest I’m not sure that there going to be a lot of massive constellations on low orbits, 2-3 more at most with 1000+ sats, managable untill they are going to be used as weapons, and then they are going down 🙃 with a lot of debris in all directions.
Fuck Elon
Fuck the ruzzian Führer.
Time for European countries to start replacing “ANYTHING Trump related” so that your neighbour Ukraine can stop ruzzia from killing them! The USA has become a cesspool of NAZIS!
And right after the Yandex strikes hmmmm
Europe, it is your problem too. You should also start considering US troops in your countries as occupants. They’re there not for defending your interests. And most probably never were.
We’re busy replacing all usa equipment, almost there 😮💨 troops’ll probably come later.
Removed by mod
What does that have to do with anything?
Removed by mod
European colonialism has absolutely nothing to do with Europe changing its view on troops in its borders from a country actively harming its interests and undermining it. to be clear they’re not even disagreeing with you, they’re saying its unrelated and a non sequitur(AKA Formal Fallacy). All it looks like you’re trying to do is derail the conversation.
Removed by mod
no one in this thread has said anything denying european colonialism go reread the thread. if the only link you have is that the us wouldn’t exist without european settlers or is connected because of historical events that has no bearing on the US being there now. colonialism doesn’t force any form of current military action IN THE COUNTRY THE COLONIALISM STARTED IN. either pull your head out of your ass or go talk about this in the appropriate venue and maybe not a Ukraine community. you make a serious topic like colonialism look like a shitty tactic to avoid talking about the Ukraine war and America becoming more of an impediment to europe than an ally. If you still don’t get it you obviously are either willfully ignorant, or taking part in some kind of targeted AstroTurfing.
Removed by mod
Papa Vlad worried about midterms. Push schedule forward.
So back in February there were news stories of how Starlink had been blocked for Russia, so it isn’t the first time they’ve done something like this.
Except this time USA is siding with Russia…Maybe it’s a bad idea for countries to entrust their military operations to the whims of the worlds richest Nazi
IRIS2 on the way, we’re doing what we can (finally).
The problem here is Ukraine lacks an alternative.
Who wouldve thunk
