Russia’s military is scrambling to find alternatives to Starlink satellite internet after access to the network was curtailed, disrupting a key communications system that its forces had been using illicitly on the battlefield.
Ukraine said last week that Starlink terminals being used by Russian troops had been deactivated after talks between its defence minister and Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX operates the satellite network.
Ukrainian officials said the move had already begun to affect Russian operations, including the use of drones.
Moscow had come to rely on thousands of contraband Starlink terminals smuggled into Russia, often through central Asia, to keep units connected along the frontline. The system allowed Russian forces to coordinate movements and drone strikes in areas where military radios were unreliable or easily jammed.
Russia has no homegrown alternative that comes close in terms of speed, coverage or ease of use. Ukraine says Russian units had started fitting drones with Starlink terminals, improving their accuracy and making them harder to disrupt electronically.
Musk said last week that efforts made to block Russian use of Starlink had had an effect. “Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked,” he wrote on X.
The move was an early victory for Ukraine’s new defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, given Musk’s past reluctance to be drawn too deeply into the conflict and comments often seen as favourable to Moscow.
Ukrainian officials said they had introduced a “whitelist” system, allowing only verified Starlink terminals to connect to the network, in effect locking out devices believed to be in Russian hands.
It remains unclear how far the change will affect Russian forces on the battlefield. The shutdown, however, has prompted anger and frustration among pro-war Russian military bloggers who are closely embedded with frontline units.
“What everyone feared for a long time has happened,” wrote Yuriy Podolyaka, a Crimea-based video blogger with a following of almost 3 million on Telegram. “Elon Musk flipped the switch … our communications are in chaos.”
Another large pro-war Telegram channel, Dva Mayora, said the loss of Starlink had already been felt. “The deactivation of Starlink terminals used by Russian forces has had a negative impact on communications in our units,” it posted, adding that troops were rushing to set up backup systems that were “less convenient”.
Analysts say alternatives exist but fall well short of Starlink. For short-range links, units can rely on fibre-optic lines, wifi-based radio bridges or digital radio modems, all of which are slower to deploy and harder to use in mobile operations.
Russia also has its own satellite communications, including systems run by Gazprom Space Systems, which have been used on a limited scale during the war. But the company operates only a small number of geostationary satellites, meaning patchy coverage and lower data capacity.
Russian forces appear to be seeking workarounds to continue using Starlink, turning to intermediaries inside Ukraine and civilians prepared to register terminals in their own names.
“For the enemy, Starlink is so important that they are trying to build an entire network of people willing to register terminals for them,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Telegram, alongside screenshots it said showed Russians advertising for Ukrainian nationals to activate the devices.
The issue has fuelled anger in Moscow that, four years into the war, the Russian army remains heavily dependent on western technology. “It is important to understand that relying on anything western in the current situation is dangerously overconfident,” said Aleksey Zhuravlyov, a State Duma lawmaker. “Even taking into account the active negotiations we are currently holding with the United States, that does not stop them from being our adversary.”
