Russia’s Illicit Starlink Terminals Help Power Its Advance in Ukraine

Before Starlink revolutionized the market, previous generations of field satellite terminals suffered from low speeds and high prices. Now users can buy terminals for a few hundred dollars and pay monthly fees for service in more than 100 countries and territories, not including Russia, according to Starlink. Users point terminals at the sky and connect to broadband internet from one of the 7,000-plus satellites in low Earth orbit.

The U.S. government increasingly relies on the service for its military operations. “That has been revolutionary for us,” said Clare Hopper, head of the U.S. Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office.

Starlink terminals have expanded across Russian positions all year, but only in the past few months have their effects been really felt, as Russian troops on the offensive use them to coordinate assaults. Ukrainian troops flying reconnaissance drones near Novohrodivka, southeast of the strategic Donetsk city of Pokrovsk, described seeing Starlinks in the Russian lines starting last month.

...

Starlink can both disable individual terminals based on their ID numbers and block areas from receiving a signal, a practice called “geofencing,” the Federal Communications Commission told a U.N. regulator this year.

One person familiar with Starlink said that the company is technically capable of identifying the location of active terminals based on their pings up to satellites, but that it can be challenging to discern the user in the “forward edge of the battle area,” where Ukrainian and Russian troops are operating.

Stacie Pettyjohn, defense program director for the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. effort to curb Russia’s use “doesn’t seem like it’s been hugely effective,” partly because of the shifting front lines.

“Ukrainian forces are in Russia now. Where exactly are the front lines?” she said. “If there’s a line drawn as to where it works and where it doesn’t, you’re basically fixing the front lines where they are and preventing the Ukrainians from going on the offensive.”

Ukrainian troops, for their part, said they also had concerns over denying access in geographic regions because it may shut their own terminals down. As it is, the troops entering Russia as part of August’s incursion suddenly found their terminals not working because of the geographic restrictions.

Read the full article and more on The Washington Post.