Ukraine claims Russian forces using Starlink internet service | CNN
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Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence claims it has confirmed the use of Starlink satellite communications by Russian forces in occupied areas.

Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence claims it has confirmed the use of Starlink satellite communications by Russian forces in occupied areas.

It says it has intercepted conversations which indicate the Starlink terminals are being used to provide internet access to Russia’s 83rd Air Assault Brigade operating in the Donetsk region.

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Ukraine’s claim follows revelations about the satellite system’s use in the war made in a biography of Starlink’s owner Elon Musk, written by Walter Isaacson.

According to an excerpt from the book, Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.

  • TWeaKEnglish
    102·
    6 months ago

    According to an excerpt from the book, Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.

    As Ukrainian submarine drones strapped with explosives approached the Russian fleet, they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes.

    Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.

    That’s a much more convoluted line of reasoning than Starlink simply never working in Crimea. It certainly gets people talking about his book, though.

      • TWeaKEnglish
        42·
        6 months ago

        His source is Musk, who also gets money from selling the book where this quote originates. He’s also an idiot.

        The fact is though that Starlink was never premitted to operate in Crimea or any territory under Russia’s control before the 2022 invasion. Occupied parts of Ukraine (excluding Crimea, which is also really an occupied territory) are something of a grey area, and it’s possible that Russians have subverted checks that SpaceX had to prevent Russia from using the technology, but Crimea was always a clear cut dead zone for the service.

        They couldn’t really “turn it back on” as it was never on there to begin with. The submarines simply left the operational zone of the service, they weren’t switched off.