KYIV, Feb 5 (Reuters) – Starlink internet terminals used by the Russian military on the battlefield in Ukraine have been deactivated, Ukraine said on Thursday, in what one official described as a “disaster” for Moscow that had disrupted its assault operations in many areas.
Ukrainian officials have said that Russia used thousands of Starlink terminals on the battlefield, something that military analysts say made their communications mobile and hard to disrupt. Reuters was not immediately able to determine the scale of the deactivation.
Ukraine said last week it was working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to block the use of Starlink terminals in Russian attack drones and was trying to compile a “white list” of all Ukraine’s terminals so that Russian ones could be deactivated.
“Starlinks included in the ‘white list’ are working — Russian terminals have already been blocked,” Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who took office last month, said on the Telegram app, noting that the process of verification was ongoing.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk said on Sunday that moves by SpaceX to stop the unauthorized use by Russia of Starlink seemed to have worked.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Fedorov, said the impact of the deactivations was already significant.
“The enemy doesn’t even have a problem on the fronts, the enemy has a disaster,” he said. “All command of the troops has collapsed. Assault operations have been stopped in many areas.”
Kyiv’s military relies on tens of thousands of satellite-based Starlink internet connections for battlefield communication and for piloting some drone missions.
It said this week it had found Starlink terminals on long-range drones used in Russian attacks.
A source in the Ukrainian army on the eastern front told Reuters that Russian troops are experiencing significant problems with communication, with almost all connection via Starlink being off.
Reuters was not able immediately to verify that information independently.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Daniel Flynn)
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