Cutting the Russian military’s access to Starlink satellite-internet terminals paid immediate dividends for Ukraine as it defends against invasion: Ukraine recaptured roughly 200 square kilometers in the country’s southeast.
A journalism partnership revealed the development, citing calculations by Agence France-Presse based on data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. U.S.-based SpaceX decided to shut down access to its Starlink terminals after Russian forces grew increasingly reliant upon them.
The result was chaos, according to global radio transmissions intercepted by a Ukrainian reconnaissance unit and shared with another news group, the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. Starlink terminals provided by the U.S. to Ukrainian forces have played a key role in their battlefield success, noted the news organization Politico, a member of the Axel Springer group.
By the third year of the 4-year-old war, Starlink terminals were turning up in greater numbers in Russian-occupied territory. SpaceX moved to enforce a stricter verification system. Only terminals placed on a Ukrainian “whitelist” remained active, Politico reported. Devices used by Russian forces were remotely deactivated.